Tarbaby Trouble

Mudflat 1

Tarbaby Trouble When you grow up in Mudflat and have a troll in your basement, magic doesn't come as a total surprise. So when astrologer Claire, on the run from a pair of crooked brothers, stumbles into another world, she's ready to play the role of resident "Stargazer." Especially if it keeps her from losing her head to all those broadswords being swung around by the blond barbarians. But one really cute warrior might make her lose her head in another way. Can Claire convince Tarvik that she's really just a peace-loving Seattle girl who needs her coffee? And how do you find your way home when there's a war about to break loose in the castle? If Claire and her Tarbaby are going to survive, they need more than a little help from the stars. Sensuality Rating: SWEET Genre: Fantasy Length: 96,000 words

TARBABY TROUBLE Mudflat 1

Phoebe Matthews

CONTEMPORARY FANTASY ROMANCE

www.BookStrand.com

A SIREN-BOOKSTRAND TITLE IMPRINT: Romance ABOUT THE E-BOOK VERSION: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to one LEGAL copy for your own personal use. It is ILLEGAL to send your copy to someone who did not pay for it. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. TARBABY TROUBLE Copyright © 2008 by Phoebe Matthews E-book ISBN: 1-60601-121-9 First E-book Publication: July 2008 Cover design by Jinger Heaston All cover art and logo copyright © 2008 by Siren-BookStrand, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER www.BookStrand.com

DEDICATION Hi, Rosemary!

TARBABY TROUBLE Mudflat 1 Phoebe Matthews Copyright © 2008

Chapter 1 From where I was flattened against the wood fence, the alley dumpster odors were strong enough to make me want to puke. I fought it, fought puking, because I’ve never been able to do it silently. And if he heard me, he’d find me and then I would be dead meat, stinking a lot worse than the dumpster. “Claire? Claire honey? I want to talk to you, Claire. That’s all, just talk.” Yeah, and right after we talk and I tell you no, I do not have the information you want, you slit my throat, right, fella? I’m not stupid. Oh, maybe I am or I wouldn’t be hiding in an alley with the likes of Dork tracking me down. Okay, so his name isn’t Dork, it’s Darryl, but it might as well be Dork. Dork the cheat, Dork the con man, Dork the liar, or, if I go Goth, Dork the Destroyer, because that’s sure what he wants to do to me. Stupid doesn’t even cover my case. He’d been all charm and flash, fancy restaurants, tickets to a country western concert, jeez, even roses, can you believe it? Roses, delivered in a white van with a mushy note attached. He had been really charming me with a two-week pursuit, until he leaned over the table of a dimly lit booth in a way too pricey restaurant and said, “I need you to make me a chart.” “Sure,” I said, not giving a second thought to that request, because it’s a sideline that pays more than my temp job at the bank.

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I’m a part time astrologer, and I also work at the Mudflat Neighborhood Center, but it’s the individuals who want fortunes told who raise my income up above “squeak by the necessities, buy a few goodies” level. I was wearing an almost-there black dress, killer heels, and I’d even had a friend twist my long dark hair into a style that scraped it back behind my ears to show off my dangly earrings. Okay, so only the shoes were mine, bought at a discount store, and the dress and earrings were borrowed. Glamour, that’s me. I was looking way too good to think clearly. “Do you have a birth certificate handy?” Everybody knows their own date of birth, or that’s what I presumed. I learned better later, but most folks don’t have a clue as to the hour and minute, very important, and an amazing number don’t even know the latitude and longitude because they presume they were born in the town where their parents lived at the time. Nah. Not nowadays, maybe not in the past hundred years for all I know. Most people are born in a maternity wing of a city hospital anywhere from across the street to hundreds of miles from their home address. And, oh yes, that makes a difference. Except not to Darryl. “Not that kind of chart, honey. I know you’re so good at charts, you give career advice, marriage advice, and you’re bang on right.” Odd. He knew what I did, of course, but this was the first time he questioned me about it and, honestly, I thought he wasn’t interested. So how did he know all that? Small neighborhood, friends of my grandmother who liked to do puff job descriptions of their friends and grandchildren. “Umm, so if you don’t want a horoscope, what do you want, Darryl?” “Numbers. Scores. Winners. For sports events, honey. Sonics, Seahawks, UDub games, whatever you come up with.” Ho-Kay. This took thinking. I leaned back in the booth and made a big deal of sipping my wine, buttering a roll, carving a narrow strip of the salmon filet. Score and winners? For one game? For one office pool kind of bet? Wake up, stupid Claire, look at where you’re dining, look at his beautifully tailored clothes, salon styled hair, and was that a Rolex? I’d been thinking it was one of those knock-off imitations, but whoa. I don’t think so. “You can do that, can’t you,” he said and it wasn’t a question. “Uh, I don’t know. I never have.”

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“Not yet, but you can, right, with whatever information you need. I can get birth date info on players and coaches, franchise times, the minute the ink soaked into a contract, whatever you need.” “I do horoscopes for people,” I muttered. “Yes, fine, do the players. Figure it from there. Scores are best, but winloss is good, if that’s all you can do. Not that I think it is. Jimmy told me you tipped him on some stocks, the exact date they’d peak and the price.” More butter on the potato, until it ran in hot yellow streams around the plate; more peas tucked into the mash I was stirring up inside those salted potato skins, more carefully carved salmon, a top-off on my wine glass, and not one swallow of anything making it to my mouth. Jimmy. Right. I never did financial stuff, way too tricky, sure to backfire, but Jimmy had been in a bind with foreclosure breathing down his whatever, and he was a cousin and family and all that and I made a bad mistake, gave him this stock tip based on a string of math formulas and hit it right on. “That was a one shot thing,” I said and looked up and met Darryl’s gaze, hoping I’d see something there that said this was some kind of casual suggestion. I knew when I said it I’d been lying to myself. Every tightened muscle of his expression gave him away. Then the glossy con man smile. “It’s really important to me, honey, and I know you can do it. For me.” Man, had I heard that line before. I did a lot of fast talking, made a few vague promises. And as soon as we’d done the kiss goodnight thing and I’d shooed him out and closed my front door, I grabbed my phone and called that rotten Jimmy. He did a lot of throat clearing, the bum. “You’re the one who introduced me to Darryl!” I shouted. “You set me up! You know I don’t do gambles, never have, never will. I’ve turned down enough offers. You know that!” “Darryl’s kind of persuasive,” Jimmy whimpered. Was that how he’d got so far down in the hole, and, now that I thought about it, what did I know about Darryl except that he had a brother living in my neighborhood? Darryl lived in a classier part of Seattle and our paths hadn’t crossed until my lying cousin introduced him to me and told me he

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worked for some perfectly respectable Seattle business, something to do with cruise ships. “What do cruise ships have to do with betting? Does he deal blackjack to tourists or something?” “I wish,” Jimmy said. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Uh Claire, I kind of don’t think I want to talk on the phone.” When I told him which of his body parts I was going to remove, he said, “Meet me tomorrow, lunch at McDonald’s, the one down at the ferry dock.” McDonald’s? Right, definitely my budget level, although I had kind of forgotten that in the past two weeks of Darryl wining and dining and strewing rose petals in my path. Two weeks. Constant attention. Very few kisses. No tries to hit on me. And I’d thought he was very proper, very gentlemanly, when all the time he was very unreal and I do hate that toogood-to-be-true cliché. I knew Darryl’s brother, knew he was scum, but I really try not to judge people by their relatives because do I want to be judged by Jimmy’s behavior? I headed for my computer and was up so late Googling Darryl that there wasn’t any point going to bed. Amazing how much is out there and how much is hidden, but I collected enough information to make some guesses. By dawn’s annoying light I showered, dressed, headed for the bank where I temp cashier and asked a loan officer how to run credit checks. “Thinking about promotion, Carmody?” “Can’t hurt to learn.” “True, the more you understand, the wider your job opportunities, though in your case, I don’t see you as advancement material.” Okay, so by the end of any working day my very long hair has escaped the clasp and is sticking out in odd directions, as well as trailing down my face. For some reason, my shirts never stay tucked in and it’s good I work in the computer room, because my pantyhose are always full of holes and runs, and, even as I stood there talking to him, I wiggled my foot a little too hard and the four-inch heel snapped out from under my left shoe. We both knew I was employed because they had three women gone on maternity leave and the bank was desperate and I did have experience. Glowing references, no, but my resume verified that I was honest and did

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not make mistakes, and when the unemployment numbers drop, what’s a human resources department to do? He gave in, showed me how to pull up credit reports, and I didn’t bother to tell him that once I am pointed in the right direction, I am wicked good on a computer. Anyone who has ever downloaded an astrology program and then checked for errors knows what I mean. I found so much to worry about, I didn’t need more from Jimmy so I stood him up. Served him right. A forty minute lunch hour later on the computer and I knew I was dead. It started that night, the string of phone calls, first wheedling, then threats, because Darryl wasn’t just doing a little sideline betting, or even planning something as straight forward as knocking off one of the Indian reservation casinos. Oh no. Did I mention that I live in Mudflat, not a place that shows up on any Seattle map. It’s more like a mindset. The city is divided into numerous neighborhoods, each with a name, and the names do appear on maps and in conversation, but Mudflat is a winding trail of blocks of property that cut through several neighborhoods and is considered off limits by those who know. Because Mudflat is where old magic lives. It’s where I grew up. It’s why my horoscope predictions are right-on. There’s no big magic in my family’s genes, just glimmers and traces that kind of give a boost to anything esoteric in our lives. It’s why I limit advice to career, romance, health, safe stuff, and even when I can see a clear answer, I always couch it in vague terms. I know. People think the “meet-a-tall-dark-stranger-someday” line is a cover-up for faking. Nope. Just the reverse. I could say, “You’ll be running off with your best friend’s husband on the second Tuesday of next June,” but what for? How would that help anybody? Instead I say, “You may be tempted to betray a friend, all in the name of love, but you’re a good person and will make the right decision.” And I cross my fingers and know darn well that on the second Tuesday of next June, her friend is going to be crying her eyes out. Or buying a gun. That’s how good I am, except I can never read my own future, which is why I was now being stalked by a wizard’s brother who planned to put me in the middle of a bad deal going down, some kind of national gambling

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ring, and for sure I would end up dead or in jail, which is the same thing, right? I was absolutely not going to help him. First, he was into felony territory. Second, he’d up the demands until I was so twisted in the net of lies, I’d never get my life back. And third, there’s not much you can’t figure out with the help of a horoscope, a computer and access to news files, and his brother the wizard was a very bad dude, leaning on politicians, trying to control Mudflat and then branch out. Which is why, when my sort of buddy, Roman, said he and a couple of friends were heading over to the Olympic peninsula on a camping trip, I said, “Wow! I love camping!” Yah, like I even go in the backyard to pull weeds. Sorry, I live in the heart of tree-hugger country, but give me city traffic and smog to breathe any time. Still, it was a small lie which earned me an invitation. Skip town for a week, spend boring camping time thinking up another destination and, who knew, I could be out of town for maybe a month or so, at which point my credit card would do the spontaneous combustion thing. With any luck, Darryl would give up on me and move on to his next scam. Really good plan, really bad timing, because at somewhere around midnight I was stuffing stuff in my backpack when I heard Darryl’s car pull up outside. I left the lights burning and ducked out the back door, cut across the small yard, rolled over the wood fence and did a dive into the alley, landing on my hands and knees. I tore the knee (both the denim one and the flesh one), grabbed my pack and started to hobble away. That’s when I heard the gate scrape open and I wedged myself behind the dumpster. Darryl shouted, “Claire? Honey?” He moved slowly down the alley, peering into shadows, while I tried not to breathe. Looking behind the dumpster apparently wasn’t on his list of possibilities because he moved past me and I saw the reason instinct had sent me running. He was carrying a roll of duct tape. Somehow I didn’t think he’d stopped by to repair my leaking gutters. Fortunately he was a spoiled brat and lacked fortitude. Those of us who are self-supporting know how to hang in there, which this time meant

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staying stuffed behind the dumpster, silent and not puking, until boredom sent Darryl back through my yard to his BMW. When I heard the engine purr, I slipped through the gate and back into my yard but I didn’t go near the house. I went to a back corner of the garden, crouched down on damp earth between the fence and an overgrown bush, and waited. And kept right on waiting. No one expected me anywhere until morning. I made the right choice because next thing I knew, the car came purring down the alley, its headlights chasing the dark away from hidey corners. He drove through twice, then stopped, got out, came through my back gate and circled the house, went up the back steps to the kitchen door, tried the knob. Knocked. Pounded. Keep it up, Billy Goat Gruff, I thought. Wake up the troll under the bridge. A really big weird dude rented the basement apartment in my house and he worked nights, so maybe he wasn’t home. I hoped he was and hoped Darryl woke him up in a bad mood. Far as I knew, the troll was non-violent, but he did not look non-violent. Darryl pulled out his cell phone, punched in a number and said, “Not here. Yes, probably. Light’s on so she must be coming back. I’ll swing by first thing in the morning.” I spent another hour feeling the damp spread across my ass and soak its way up through my jeans, with the only distraction the burning in my knee. By the time I decided to move, I was almost too stiff to unfold. Then, very quietly, cautiously, I slipped back to the alley, stayed in the shadows, made my way to the street and headed out on a five mile hike to Roman’s house. Buses don’t run in Mudflat after evening commute. Okay, I made it before sunrise, much to everyone’s amazement, got stuck in the middle of the backseat of Roman’s old car between a couple who were mad at each other, and curled my damp self around my damp backpack and went to sleep. I wish I could sing the joys of camping but it was far worse than I had imagined. It took us about four hours, what with a ferry ride and two bridges, to reach the Olympic Mountains, which are centered on a peninsula and surrounded by a narrow band of flat land and beaches and saltwater and

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the whole thing stretches west to the Pacific Ocean where there’s a line of windswept beaches and a rain forest, and some people actually think of it as vacationland. Tourists love misery. We didn’t go that far. Quick geography lesson here: the Olympic Mountains are a fairly spectacular cluster, high and pointy and snow-topped most of the year. A few roads go up the edges to lookout areas. The best known is Hurricane Ridge. The roads do not cut through the range because it isn’t as though anyone needs to shortcut across a peninsula at the end of the world. So the center is kept wild, though I guess naturalists prefer words like pristine, which means no paving. Nothing that goes putt-putt or vroom-vroom is allowed to enter. It is open past the road’s end and the ranger stations on a permission basis to the sort of folks who hike where there is no trail. The permission thing is required because I guess the park service gets really tired of searching for lost hikers. Around the outer edges, on the lower slopes, there are picnic areas and camp grounds and that’s where we ended up, sleeping in stupid canvas bags on bare dirt while the rain dripped slowly on our soggy cocoons. The others warmed themselves with some slightly illegal and some highly illegal substances, the food supply ran out and the liquor was nonstop. Sick of the lot of them, I took advantage of the first sunny day. I peeled out of my wet jeans and sweat shirt and switched into tee shirt, shorts, sandals, tucked my pony tail through the back strap of my baseball cap, and shouldered my pack, which contained very little but I didn’t trust any of them to stay out of it if I left it. I was down to my last clean tee shirt. While Roman and the others stretched out on the ground and on the picnic table, snoring themselves into oblivion and sunburns, I decided to find the road and see if I could possibly hitch a ride to somewhere, anywhere. My credit card was good for a motel room, a hot shower and food, oh yes, please, black coffee before I died from caffeine withdrawal. The one small flaw in my plan was my lack of any sort of sense of direction. I was absolutely sure that if I took a shortcut it would get me to the road in twenty minutes, forty tops. After three hours of pushing my way through thickening undergrowth, all I’d found were a few prickly berry bushes. I dug out my Swiss army

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knife, one of those great red things that someone once gave me and I never expected to use, and managed to cut off a small spray. The berries looked ripe but were hard and sour. My arms and legs were criscrossed with scratches. I tucked the knife through the belt on my shorts and then stumbled into a shallow stream to cool my burning feet. A stream had to go somewhere, right, and I was beginning to suspect I’d been walking in circles. So I stayed in the stream and waded through the knee-deep cool water until weariness slowed my pace to a full stop. Every inch of me, from my knees up, itched with sweat. I took off my hat, stuffed it into my pack, and ducked down into the stream until its coolness soaked through my clothes to my skin, then stood and bent over and managed to get my long hair and sticky scalp thoroughly wet. Let me say here then I don’t know which of us was most surprised.

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Chapter 2 “Do not touch your knife. Turn slowly,” a voice behind me said. I stiffened, my arms raised. The voice that spoke was soft, the words barely audible, his accent nothing I recognized. Park ranger? What, had they already arrested Roman and crew and had come looking for me? I did a quick think and started readying a sobbing explanation about how I barely knew them and was shocked, absolutely shocked, to discover they had brought along booze and drugs on what I had thought was to be a commune with nature. That sounded right. I turned slowly as commanded, my arms above my head. And then I looked up at my captor. He was young, still closer to boy than man, looked about college freshman age. Beneath a thick mass of yellow hair was a knockout face, sky blue eyes, wide mouth and square jaw, thick neck. His skin was sunburned beneath a scattering of freckles on his shoulders. “Who are you, girl?” he whispered. His question snapped my mind back to my situation. Who was I, indeed? How long since I had been asked that question? “Hail, Conan the Barbarian,” I said because although he looked nothing like the film version, was much better looking, actually, he was dressed in a costume Arnold would have envied. Classy outfit, killer boots, tooled leather belt. “What’s up? Is there a medieval fair going on?” “Your name?” he said again. Okay, I could play games. Let’s see, what were the rules? Oh right, wicked sorcerers used people’s names to control them, therefore always give an alias. Something that meant astrologer or fortuneteller? Gypsy Sue? No, something more glamorous, right? Maybe this fair had good food. I’d been

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to a few and run into cold hot dogs and warm coke but never mind, I could hope. “Stargazer,” I said and grinned at him. He did not return my grin. Maybe barbarians aren’t supposed to grin and this guy was taking his role-playing way too seriously. “Come toward me slowly. Make no sound. I will not harm you.” Yah, I’d heard that one before. Still, out here in the woods with no one else in sight, I figured I’d humor the guy. In his hand he held a heavy broadsword, the kind used by barbarians to slay their enemies in every film I could remember and, unfortunately, it didn’t look fake. Probably the edges were dull but still, the damn thing could leave a hell of a bruise. He stood above me at the edge of the stream bank, half concealed by brush. After I waded out of the stream and climbed the bank, he reached toward me and plucked my knife from my belt. I’d forgotten all about it, that silly Swiss pocket knife that I had dug out of my pack to use to cut berries. Moving swiftly, he tucked it inside his boot, then hung his sword on his own belt. “Okay, play time is over, fella. That knife was a gift and I want it back,” I muttered. He grabbed me and turned me away from him so that he could pull my backpack off of my shoulders. When he let go of me, I turned to face him again and watched in silence as he reached into the pack, felt through the contents. Big deal, all that remained in my pack was a clean tee shirt, my comb, my toothbrush and my billfold. He glanced at each item, looked puzzled, and then replaced everything except the billfold. He flipped it open and pulled out my credit card. “I can’t believe this!” I stormed. “Muggers in a national forest!” He slid the card back into the billfold, dropped it back into the pack, then dug into the bottom and came up with the last item, my cell phone. When he pressed his fingers into the keys, the phone lit up. His eyes went wide and those blond eyebrows practically disappeared into his hairline as he dropped the phone into the damp ferns. “Hey!” I shouted and a bunch of other words I keep meaning to remove from my vocabulary because honestly, they sound juvenile, but by the time I’d made it through a string of them, I found the phone, picked it up, wiped

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it off against my tee shirt front and then thought, why not 9-1-1? If he was a fruitcake, I could use some help here. But when I pressed the keys, the roaming light faded and goodbye battery. Okay, make the best of it, look at the guy and figure out the best route away. We were the same height. Oh, that’s right. Arnold-style barbarians aren’t tall, so maybe that’s why this guy picked this costume. Not tall, no, but he seemed much larger than me because he was solid and hard-muscled and if his intentions were unpleasant, I was going to have to count on my wits. He wore gold arm bands above his elbows and at his wrists, and his fingers were covered with gold rings. Some of the gold almost looked real, although it had to be costume jewelry considering the size of each piece. His woven vest was open in front and tied with laces that crisscrossed on his chest. More of that nice yellow hair gleamed like sunshine against his bare skin. He wore pants tucked into boots laced to his knees; kind of sexy, really. “You are from the land beyond the mist,” he said. “How did you come here?” “I flew over the top of a mountain, us stargazers have invisible wings,” I said, “and landed in your stupid stream.” My wet shorts and dripping hair itched. To hide my fear, I pulled my long hair forward over my shoulder and slowly twisted it to wring out the water. He frowned, caught my wrist in a firm grip, and said, “Come with me but make no noise or they will kill you.” Reason enough to be silent, I decided. What kinds of games were going on here? Some kind of paintball battle? He led me away from the stream along a path through the woods where the trees pressed together and their leaves hid the sun. “If you cry out, my guards will hear you. I cannot always control them.” He half dragged me, pulling me along like a child, and his action cleared my mind. He was much stronger than I, but maybe dumber? If I kept my thoughts clear, could I outwit him? It probably depended on who his playmates were and how close it was to dinnertime and the end of the game. My heart calmed its pounding.

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“Why do your friends want to kill me?” I asked. “Do they score a point for every limp body? Hey, I can do limp.” His eyes widened with curiosity. “I don’t care if you live or die, but first I want to speak with you,” he said. “I know from your dark hair that you are from the outlands. Only once before have outlanders come here and that was long ago and they are gone. You did not come that way. Still, I do not believe you can fly.” I avoided his stare, looking over his shoulder, and said nothing. His act was way too complicated and he obviously had no plan to step out of character for me. Oh. Maybe this was a really large fair and he thought I was a participant. “I’m not with the fair,” I said. “If you could just take me to the nearest road, I can thumb a ride.” His lower lip jutted out. “You must be hungry with nothing to eat but berries. I will give you food if you will tell me how you came here.” When I didn’t answer, because honestly, how had I managed to get this lost, he shrugged and reached into a pouch strung to his belt, an honest-toGod leather pouch, which must have been lined with plastic. Anyway I hoped so, because he pulled out a hunk of cheese and a long brown piece of something or other. He held them out to me. “Here, eat this.” The cheese had a pungent odor, but it was food I recognized. I sniffed it, broke a small bit off of a corner and tasted it, not believing myself because probably the bacteria count was off the scale. “Yes, thanks,” I said and palmed it, figuring I’d drop it in the ferns when he looked away. Thing is, this guy was creeping me out and it seemed wise to humor him. He stood silently, watching me, then handed me the brown piece, some sort of smoked meat, maybe? I could not guess what to do with it. It felt hard and dry in my hands, and had an unpleasant odor. “What is this?” “Dried mutton,” he said. I handed it back to him. “Thanks, anyway, I’m a vegetarian.” His eyebrows shot up, wrinkling his forehead. “You are what?” So we were still game-playing.

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I bowed my head and said, “Kind sir, I do not eat meat because I am not a barbarian.” “What is a barbarian?” he asked. “You —” I began, then stopped. Whoops? Had I misread the costume? Did he think he was someone in a Shakespearean play, Romeo, MacBeth? Okay, he was Danish blond, but the costume didn’t look like any Hamlet I’d ever seen. How far did he want to carry the word play? “Barbarians are wolves, this is the forest and I am Little Red Riding Hood. Now can we move on out of here? Damn bugs are chewing my hide.” He nodded, thank God. “Soon I will be missed and my guards will search for me. I must return to my camp and you must return with me. Do exactly as I tell you, Stargazer, and I may chose to let you live.” Again he caught my wrist and I felt the heat and sweat in his hand. Was there something he feared? Certainly not me, not the way he held on to me. He hurried me through the woods until we reached the clearing. In its center stood this humongous horse and who knew they let those things into national forests? A pseudo-barbarian I could manage, but not a horse. It threw back its huge head, opened its jaws baring wide yellow teeth, and made a terrible sound. Its long white tail switched around its hind legs. I feared it would rise up and come pounding down on me with its enormous hooves. “Come along, girl.” “No!” He peered into my face, his mouth curled up at the corners, and he laughed. “Are you afraid of my horse?” “Had a really bad experience once,” I mumbled, not much wanting to elaborate. I fell off a pony at Woodland Park Zoo when I was about five and everyone laughed at me and to this day I do not consider horses my friends. “You must ride on my horse,” he said. “He will not hurt you. See? He is as gentle as a lamb.” He walked up to the horse and scratched behind its ears. The horse dropped its great head and pressed its nose into the guy’s shoulder. “I’ll walk.”

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“No. You cannot. You do not understand. If you walk into the camp my men will attack you before I can stop them. No, you must ride on my horse so they will know you are mine.” “And why should that stop them?” ‘You will see. Whatever I say, you must agree with me.” He dragged me over to the horse and pulled my hand toward it until my fingers touched its nose. It was warm and oddly soft beneath its coarse mat of hair, probably a nice horse, yes, but I still didn’t want it as a friend. “There, Stargazer. He is not wild. His name is Banner and if you speak softly to him, he will love you.” I managed to say, “Never much wanted to be loved by a horse.” Though, God knows, I’d had a few pigs fall for me. Before I realized what he had in mind, the guy pressed his hands around my waist and lifted me off my feet as though I was no heavier than a backpack. My whole body went cold with fear when he sat me on that damn horse. Beneath me it twitched and snorted and I figured it would at any moment rise up and buck me off. Its hot, heavy odor nauseated me. The guy jumped up behind me, stretched his arms around me and caught the reins. “Hold onto his mane,” he said, and when I did not move, he added, “The hair on his neck.” “Oh, is that the mane,” I grumbled and considered grabbing the ears. Oh yeah, don’t make jokes around the obviously mentally deranged. Drugs? No, drugs were what was back on the picnic table and none of that crowd was up to jumping onto a tall horse. I grasped the coarse mane in my hands and hoped Banner would not be annoyed. What followed was plain old pain and my mind deserted me. The horse lurched forward and I bounced and jerked on its back, held there in the circle of strong arms, while we pounded through the forest. Wind blew my hair across my eyes and branches caught at me, but we rushed on, crashing through the trees. The forest blurred around me, green shadows shot with sunlight. I expected at any moment to be thrown to the ground, every bone in my body shattered. The horse shuddered and stopped. I flew forward against its neck and the boy pulled me back, his hands pressing hard against my ribs. When my mind stopped whirling, I looked down at a circle of faces. Their surprise raised all of their pale eyebrows so they looked like copies of

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each other, all staring with their mouths open, all blond and heavy-set and wearing matching costumes. How much time did these folks spend on rehearsing? “I claim her as my captive,” he said to them, and they all looked at him and they all listened. “Any man who touches her will die.” Right, and that’s the cue to drag me from the horse, beat the kid, tie me to a stake and dance around singing rude songs. Or was that some other sort of gathering? Instead, they backed away from us, still staring but not arguing. Only one of the men stepped forward and said, “Will you take her to your father?” “When it pleases me,” he answered. I said, “Enough’s enough, I need aspirin and I need it now.” Maybe they were all deaf. Or I was suddenly invisible. No one acknowledged my heartrending request. The man who had spoken shook his head. His hair was sun-streaked blond on the top and underneath it was several shades darker. Did he wear it that way to his day job? “You must take her now. I will travel with you. I cannot guarantee your safety with a captive in your tent.” “Artur, I am able to care for myself,” he said. His voice was low but shook with fury. “Well enough for you, my prince. If she kills you, it is I who will die a painful death at the hands of your father.” Okay, a clue, the barbarian was supposed to be a prince of something. His princely and slightly sweaty arm tightened around me, his ringed fingers digging into my waist. He raised his other hand to hold up his sword. “Look at her! She is a priest of the Daughter. Dare you touch her?” The men leaned toward me and their eyes narrowed. The one called Artur shook his head slowly. In his expression I saw recognition and then fear, but I could not imagine why and it seemed unfair that no one handed me a script. Right after aspirin, I needed a script. Because it hit me then, all the matching makeup and costumes, this had to be some sort of low budget film, probably an entry for an amateur contest. “I will take her to my tent,” my captor said. “Tomorrow I will take her to Kovat.”

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The horse walked slowly through the camp, me and Prince Whatever still stuck on its back. Between the tents stood a dozen or more gamers or actors and every one of them staring at me. They wore sleeveless leather tunics. The bulging muscles of their arms were banded in metal bracelets and they were a great ad for their favorite gym. Some wore belts covered with metal discs and a few wore silver hoops that looked as though they were passed right through their ear lobes, taking the whole costume craze a bit far. A stench rose from their sweat soaked bodies that was worse than the smell of the horse, and was that the result of TV reality shows meeting costume fairs? If they wanted a guest lecturer on their program, I could explain about soap and deodorant and I knew a couple of slick methods for removing sweat stains from fabric. As several of the kids I worked with at the Center were young teens, I knew how to be very firm with this lecture. Swords hung from their belts and some of them held tall spears. Ribbons of yellow and red fluttered from the spears and from the tops of the tent poles. My captor slid off the horse, pulled me after him, then caught me before I fell sprawling on the ground. He half-carried, half-dragged me into his tent, one arm around me, his other hand hard on my wrist. While the men watched, a few with their lips pulled back from their teeth in wide frat boy grins, I kept my face quiet. This was the nuttiest bunch I had ever met and until I figured them out, the low profile approach seemed best. Once the tent flap dropped behind us, I glanced about, saw no one else, and lifting the wrist he still grasped, I bit hard on his hand. He gasped. I twisted away from him, swung to face him and stared directly into his eyes, my teeth clenched. Until I figured out that group outside, I decided to refrain from kneeing him. “You are my prisoner! You have no right to bite me!” he cried. His face contorted in anger and pain. I suppose I should not have lost control, but he really did look like a little kid cheated in a game of hide-andseek. I laughed, then clapped my hands over my mouth. “Dare you laugh at me?” He stared at the half circle of red marks my teeth left on his skin.

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“Well, gosh oh golly, you forgot to tell me the rules,” I snapped back. “You are my slave. I may treat you as I please. I captured you and that is the law,” he said. “Oh please. I am no slave, for sure not yours, and you’re sounding more like a sexist pig every minute,” I shouted, unable to control my anger. Yes, yes, I know anger is a weakness, but this guy was rapidly becoming my undoing. He stared, wide-eyed. “Have you no slaves in the outlands?” “Okay, fella, define slave.” “A captive caught fair, from another tribe. A slave must do whatever its master tells it to do.” “Really bad casting,” I said, “and anyway, I am a priest. You said so.” “That might work later. For now, you are my slave.” His tent was the size of a large room and contained a table covered with wooden bowls and flasks of pounded metal. The floor was piled with cushions, blankets, and sheepskins and was one a bearskin? Huh, didn’t know those were legal. The tent held no hiding places but at least it separated me from that very smelly crowd outside. “Tell me what a priest is and who the Daughter is and how I must act and what must I say?” If I could keep him talking, I might think of a shortcut to the final curtain. He shrugged, moving nearer to me than I liked, but I tried not to act nervous. Weird makes me nervous because it’s hard to know where a weird stranger is headed. He was probably harmless, but maybe not. I made myself think of him as Prince, a tad better than thinking of him as The Barbarian. The typecasting worked because he did look a bit like a short version of a Disney prince, handsome enough if I ignored the frown. His hair looked rather like a dandelion, pale yellow, thick, and tumbled about his forehead and ears, chopped off in jagged layers. “The Daughter is our guide to the Sun. We have built the Sun a great temple so one day he may find us. She has promised he will come north and we will never more suffer winter,” he said. “Uh-huh?” “It has been promised by the Daughter. She came to us with her beloved, and they told us many things. Now they have returned to their father, the Sun, and left us to darkness. We watch at the temple for their

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returning, knowing they have not forgotten the line of Kovat. They guard us even now and will one day return.” I had not heard such bad lines since I once heard a crazy neighbor say he could send the ghosts of the dead to Hell and the ghosts would return with messages. Maybe that could be worked into this script. The role assigned to me was a puzzle. “Why did you say I was a priest?” He smiled, looking pleased with himself. “I knew my men would believe it.” He caught my chin in his hand and turned my head so that I had to stare into his eyes. “You look enough like the Daughter that I knew they would believe me.” “Is that why you brought me here? Because I look like whoever plays this Daughter person?” “It is why I did not kill you when I saw you in the stream.” Rewind time. I did not like the word kill. At first I thought it was some score-keeping thing and I can fall over and howl and tremble and then go stiff. I used to do that back in the days of Aliens versus Astronauts on the playground. Something else was going on here. I needed to have “kill” and “dead” defined. Before I could ask, a man backed into the tent through the flap and turned slowly. He carried in his hands a heavy tray covered with food which he placed on the table. Although he was blond like the others, he was dressed differently, wearing rough wool cloth, and around his ankles were metal bands. A chain ran between them so that he could walk but not run. He bowed to my captor, cast a frightened glance at me, stared at the floor and backed out of the tent. “Uh, he’s joking, right?” I asked. Prince grinned. “He is a slave who behaves as a slave should.” “I will carry trays for you, if that’s what you want. Only I hope you don’t expect me to do the cooking. You wouldn’t want to eat it,” I told him. “You cannot prepare food? What can you do?” “I am a priest of the Daughter, whatever that is,” I said solemnly, hoping to distract him while I considered escape routes. “Eat your meal. I will go out with my men.” He sounded annoyed. I hoped he was. If I could manipulate his emotions so easily, that could be useful. I’d offer to rewrite the storyline for

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these amateurs except more and more I was getting this odd message that they didn’t know they were playacting. After he did a sharp turn on his heel and strode out, leaving me alone in the tent, I wandered over to the table to pick through the food. There were berries and cheese and hunks of whole grain bread and some really dark, bitter beer in a flask. By now I was so hungry, I decided to trust in the beer to defeat the bacteria. I waited in the tent until a woman entered, dressed much as the male slave, carrying a bowl of water. She, too, was weighted with ankle bands and a chain. She was the first woman I had seen in the camp. Quickly I asked, “Who are you?” Her face closed in what honestly resembled fear and I said, “You’re good! Hey, are there hidden cameras? You folks making a film?” She would not speak, stuck with the mute bit, and I gave up for the night. I dropped my pack by the table and pulled out my toothbrush. When I poured water from a flask into a bowl and managed to wash a bit, she looked startled. “I don’t suppose there are showers around here?” No, but wow, she pointed to this big old crock thing that apparently served as a toilet and I remembered another reason why I hated camping. My shorts and shirt had dried from my excursions into the stream, but were badly stained with mud and berry juice. “I can sleep in these, can’t make them any worse,” I said, hoping talk about clothing was harmless enough to earn a reply. I even added a smile. Keeping her gaze lowered, she pointed at the mound of blankets and sheepskins in the corner, then left, backing out as the other slave actor had done. The room filled up with shadows as the sunlight filtering through the tent faded into night. I was too weary to worry any longer about running away. Tomorrow, when I knew my captor better, I would figure this out. And when I got back to town, I planned on throwing a hissy fit in the middle of the store that sold me my useless cell phone. Now I dropped down on the blankets. Beneath my fingers I felt the tight curls of sheep’s wool, not the best smelling bed, but it was soft. Unable to sleep, I stared up into the darkening tent and wished I’d never left the city, wished I’d remembered country air is unhealthy. Wished I

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knew a quick and permanent way to avoid Darryl. Why me? I muttered over and over to myself, like a chant, because counting sheep while lying on a dusty sheepskin is not at all conducive to sleep. Through my weary stupor I heard Prince return to the tent. He moved around slowly, walking softly, dropping something on the floor. There was a rattle of metal on wood as though he set a mug on the table. And then his footsteps approached me. I kept my eyes closed, hoping if he saw me sleeping he would be satisfied I was settled for the night and would go away. I heard his breath as he leaned over me and I stopped breathing. He dropped down on the bedding beside me, and although he was not actually touching me, I felt the near heat of his body, felt his breath on my face as he leaned close to me. If I had to, I could probably do a little street fighting but in the end he was a lot stronger so my best bet was to figure out which would work with this one, insults or flattery? I tried to remain silent but must have made some small noise. Far from friends, alone with a guy whose intentions I did not want to think about, my indrawn breath of frustration was loud enough for him to hear. His hard hand clamped over my mouth. “Cry out and my guards will rush in to slay you,” he whispered. Perhaps remembering the bite I had given him earlier, he removed his hand. I opened my eyes and stared into his face, which was much too close to mine. In the darkness I could see his light eyes. Okay, I’d go for distraction first. “Why should men obey a boy?” “I am not a boy. I am nineteen years, which is as old as you, I think.” The fear in the slaves’ faces had looked awfully convincing and that worried me. And knowing Goldilocks was three years younger than me did not exactly fill me with confidence because it meant he had a whole lot of teen hormones pushing him. Before I lost my courage, I said, “Go on then, kill me, sweetie, because that’s the only way you’re going to score.” He sighed, he actually sighed, and sounded weary of my arguments. Was he regretting that he hadn’t just left me in the stream? “I am not going to harm you, Stargazer.”

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Okay, he was stripped to the waist but he’d kept his pants on so maybe I was being unfair to judge him. But why lie down next to me, why not sleep across the tent from me? As though he read my mind, he said, “I feel safer with you beside me than across the tent.” He pressed a weight across my throat and from its hard cold touch I knew it was the blade of his broadsword. He settled down beside me, not quite touching me but close enough that I could feel his body heat, saying in a low voice I could barely hear, “If you try to escape, I will cut off your head. Now go to sleep.” “Pleasant dreams to you, too,” I muttered. Sure, he was joking about the beheading thing, but what if his hand slipped? What if I rolled over too quickly? An accident could leave me just as dead. I lay motionless with the sword across my neck, wondering what I dared do. Was I to spend the rest of this insane fiasco sleeping beneath a sword? He wasn’t noisy, I’ll say this for him. His sleep breathing was closer to low humming than snoring. When he moved slightly, I drew in my breath. If he rolled over in his sleep, would his sword slit my throat? How was I supposed to sleep? I turned my head to peer at him through the shadows and whispered, “Could you move the sword?” He continued to snore softly. As my sight adjusted to the night, I saw the outline of his head. In sleep his face was smooth planes, free of expression and very young, short thick white lashes pressed above the line of cheekbone, his wide mouth open. His face rolled slightly away from me and his pale hair fell back from his ear. Something glittered. I focused on the shine until I could see its shape. In his earlobe he wore a small gold ring. A pity I had never read his horoscope so I could better judge what to expect of him and how to maneuver around his whims. Now I was more puzzled by the sword on my neck. Moving very slowly and carefully, I edged upward, steadying the sword with my hand so it would not shift. The blade was wide and heavy, and damn, sharpened on both edges. It was definitely capable of doing really messy things to my windpipe. I knew even in his sleep he grasped the hilt. When I had moved until the blade rested across my shoulders instead of my neck, I stopped, afraid to move more. With the weight off my throat, I

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could sort of think, and all my thoughts turned to the same question. Now that I had marched myself into an impossible situation, how was I supposed to get out? My mind grew as heavy as his sword and without meaning to, I fell asleep. In the morning when I woke he was gone. Another silent woman in slave costume brought me food and water. I washed and changed into my clean tee shirt and stuffed the dirty one in my backpack. As I was picking through the unappetizing food, sleep-buddy returned to the tent, scooped up my backpack from the floor, grabbed my wrist, and, without a word or even a look at me, dragged me outside to toss me on his horse. He jumped up behind me, kicked his heels into the horse’s sides and we sped out of the camp. The guys who were playing guards were unhappy, with deep scowls and stage whisper muttering. I had heard the angry voices outside the tent before Prince Whatsit returned from wherever he’d gone, brushed aside the tent flap and stomped toward me. The guard called Artur, who seemed to be in charge, had argued that he wanted several of his men to ride with us. The prince had hissed at him, sounding rather like an angry cat, threatening the man with dreadful punishments. I did not understand why these grown men were putting up with the kid. Had they drawn lots for casting and he’d lucked out, got to play spoiled ruler? We crashed through the trees following a stream bed until we were beyond sight and hearing of the camp. Then he pulled on the reins to slow his horse to a walk. Banner shook his head and made odd snorting noises, as did the guy. Mumbling more to himself than to me, he said, “How dare he speak to me that way. I will have him broken. I will put up with him no longer. I am a man now and within my rights. I will give orders to suit my wishes without some stupid guard forever stopping me.” “Game’s over,” I said. “Or not. But there’s no point trying to impress me.” His fingers grasped my shoulder and he shook me, as though I were the offending guard, saying, “I am their ruler’s son, do you understand?”

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“Yes, I get that. You’re Prince Charming or whatever, which means daddy is a king. That’s easy. So where to now, a hoedown?” “My father is a warlord, not a king. My name is Tarvik. My father’s line goes back seven generations. The first son of the line of Kovat is always known as the Garnet Prince.” “Weird, I mean, not like Shakespeare, not Dungeons and Dragons, oh! Surely I am wrong here, but let me ask. All those blonds, are you supposed to be Vikings? If you are, I don’t think you’ve quite got the costumes right.” “My father is Kovat the Slayer, the greatest warlord in all the lands.”

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Chapter 3 “Love the names,” I said. A night of sleeping under a sword had cured me of any hope of winning by intimidation. Flattery was the way to go, maybe toss in flirtation though I wasn’t yet sure how far to go with that. The kid was nineteen, raging whatsit age. And he thought I was nineteen. Wasn’t that sweet and aren’t teenagers blind? If I explained I was legal drinking age and he wasn’t, would that make him contrite or angry? “I don’t know if he’ll let me keep you.” “But you said I was your slave,” I pointed out. “To make you hush up, girl. No, my father won’t want you as a slave. I have another idea, but if he doesn’t like it, he might separate your head from your shoulders.” “What unpleasant hobbies you folks have, “ I muttered, then tried for a joke. “Are you hoping he will let you do the beheading?” “You deserve it for biting my hand.” As he was obviously one of those people who wake up cranky, I decided to shut up. We rode through the day, stopping occasionally to rest and eat the food he carried in a pouch tied to his belt. His mood improved, though I did not know whether that was due to the passing of the day or my charming company. This sounds all downside, but it had an upside. Not a chance in Hell Darryl would consider hiking through a forest in his fancy suit and polished shoes. And right now, this odd prince guy seemed considerably safer company. He chatted to me as though we were friends, pointing out landmarks and telling me their names, and, as long as I occasionally nodded, he remained cheerful.

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“Do you see that far mountain, girl? My father’s lands stretch beyond it. His city is ahead of us, in the direction of sunset. Do you live in a city? Is it large? You cannot be a shepherd’s daughter if you do not eat mutton. What do you eat? Yes, I remember, I saw what you left on the table. You eat fruit and cheese and bread but not mutton. Do you like nuts? I have some with me.” The only time he was completely silent was when he ate. He would slide off the horse, lift me down, and then reach into his pouch. Whatever he pulled out he divided in half, handing half to me. He did not offer me that truly disgusting dried mutton but he shared the rest. I wondered if it was really beef jerky, not that I ate that, either. He carried a flask of the dark bitter beer and called it mead, now there’s a good medieval word, and several times we stopped by streams and were able to dip out water. He chattered non-stop, asking how I liked this or that, until we settled cross-legged on the grass. Then he bent over his hands and stared at his food the whole while he ate, as though he expected it to disappear if unguarded. He was rather fun to watch. “Do you really not know how to cook?” he asked once, when we were seated on a fallen log sharing nuts and dried berries from his supply. “Do you?” I replied. “Yes, certainly. Or I would sometimes have to eat my food raw.” The thought of raw meat was too nauseating to discuss and so I said, “I thought your slaves did the cooking.” “Slaves? Sometimes. But no one can depend on them and there are times when it is safer to cook my own food.” I said, “Use a pinch of poison for flavoring, would they?” He nodded yes. Gosh, I’d meant it as a joke. “But then why keep slaves?” I asked. “Or are they like pawns, the first line?” I pictured a neat row of game losers serving as a line of blockers, first to deflect paint balls. He frowned, lines deepening between his eyebrows. He said slowly, “In battle we can either take prisoners or we can kill everyone. That would be worse, wouldn’t it?” “My chess skills aren’t much, but don’t pawns get set to the side of the board after they’re captured?”

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“Is that another name for slaves?” Damn, I spent a couple of evenings a week working with teenagers at the Center and this was supposed to be a time out, so I didn’t bother answering. Sometimes we walked, leading the horse, when the path wound between boulders. I preferred walking on my own feet to riding across the valleys at full gallop. When we walked, Tarvik kept hold of my hand. His hands were square, strong, and he folded his fingers around mine. Annoying, but not worth arguing about. He was cheerful and pleasant, but still, he was a sword-carrying guy. I had been well schooled, but somehow no one ever mentioned what to do about a handholding, sword-carrying guy. Dusk fell before we reached the city. He lifted me back onto Banner. I considered telling him to cup his hands into a step to give me a boost and let me swing up myself, then had this mental picture of me flying head first over the stupid stallion and crashing back to earth. Decided against that. He leaped up behind me, made a clicking sound at Banner and we wound up a low hillside. We stopped on the top of the hill, where an evening breeze ruffled Banner’s mane and blew my hair across my face. Tarvik reached around me, brushed my hair back from my eyes, and then I saw it, a city unlike any I had ever seen. It stretched across a line of low hills. Our journey upward had been gradual, and now I looked across a valley of low hills surrounded in all directions by blue mountains, a valley in the Olympics and good Lord, at the moment I realized how very little I knew about my home state because I had certainly never heard of a hidden valley in the mountain range. More, I had been told only hikers were allowed in these mountains. That kind of misinformation could get me killed. Something reminded me of ice cubes being dropped inside my collar to slide down my spine, one of those fun/misery childhood tricks. I felt my skin tighten, my breath stop, my mind flash danger signals. I grew up in a world where reality often clashed with common knowledge, that’s what Mudflat was all about, but whoa! This was hallucination. Oh. Maybe. Had Roman and his creepy friends slipped me something? And when was I going to wake up?

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Inside an outer ring of tents were hundreds of huts, tumbledown shacks built of wood and rock, red in the late afternoon sun. They covered the lower slopes and were separated only by dusty paths and flickering cook fires. At the crest of the centermost hill large, ugly stone structures surrounded by walls gave a clumsy unity to the sprawling city. Help. I was way past lost. “Is this some sort of private park or nature reserve or something?” Pointing at the stone buildings, he said, “That’s the castle. I think I will not ride into my city with you looking thus.” When I turned on the horse to look over my shoulder and see what he intended to do, he reached his hand into the front of his tunic and pulled out a scarf of coarse linen dyed in stripes of red and blue. “Put this over your head,” he said, draping it about me. I tied the scarf under my chin. He pulled its edges forward to shadow my face. “Turn this way, there. Your hair shows in back. Sit still.” He caught my long hair in one hand, wound it in a coil and shoved the ends under the neckline of the back of my tee shirt. “I wish you would stop treating me like some small child to be pulled this way and that,” I complained. “I am treating you like a girl I wish to keep alive for a while,” he said. “Do you always carry a scarf in your tunic?” I asked. “Yes, it is a token of my promise.” “What’s that mean?” “The scarf belongs to Alakar, the lady I will wed.” “Oh, that kind of promise. And would your girlfriend gladly share her scarf with me?” Was this a game engagement or were we talking real life girlfriend here? He gave only a grunt for answer, dug his heels into Banner’s sides and sent us rushing down the hill. I caught at the mane and clung. By the time we reached the city, twilight shadowed the tents and huts. Occasional torches lit the paths between. We passed close to groups of people squatting at evening fires stirring their cook pots. Tarvik rode outside the edges of the firelight. A few people glanced up, then ducked their heads and stayed motionless until we passed. Couldn’t guess who they thought I was. The girlfriend-owner of the scarf? The word that crowded into my mind was “surreal.”

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The dirt path wound up the center hill and ended at a gate in a stone wall. On either side stood guards, their spears gleaming in the faint light. One raised his spear and said, “Welcome, son of Kovat.” “Where is my father?” “He is gone, my prince.” “Gone?” His arms stiffened around me. “Gone where?” “He led his army south this dawn.” “Why?” “I do not know, my prince. I will open the gate for you.” “No need,” he said and jerked the reins to turn his horse around. “Do not know, indeed,” he muttered in my ear. “They know full well but won’t admit that they know all that goes on in the castle.” Further and further from reality. If I told him that I rented out my basement to a troll, would he be surprised? Had these people been playing out this act so long that they now believed it and how long was so long? Maybe they were a combination of teachers and students with months of summer vacation. Was it like those language camps people attended? I had a friend who went to a Portuguese language camp once, English spoken for only one hour a day at suppertime, and she said success was when she realized she was dreaming in Portuguese. Lordy, did they dream in barbarian? We rode past a clump of small trees to another gate in another wall and more guards who saluted him. After lifting me down from the horse, Tarvik handed Banner’s reins to the guard, then caught my elbow and pulled me toward the gate. “Stop pulling me everywhere,” I said. “Be silent a moment longer,” he whispered, his breath hot on my ear. He rapped on the gate, shuffled his feet impatiently, rapped again and then tried to push the gate open. “Who knocks?” whispered a girl’s voice. “Tarvik.” From within we heard a bolt slide. When the gate opened, a lamp flickered in the shadows and lit a small round face, pale, freckled and framed by a tousled mass of light hair. “Who is with you?” she whispered. “Let us in, Nance, and I will show you.”

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We entered and the girl bolted the gate behind us. Then she led us across an empty courtyard and through an open doorway. She moved to the room’s center, stretched her arm above her head and touched her lamp flame to the wicks of a circle of candles that hung from the ceiling on a metal chain. The candle light cast shadows in the corners of the bare room. Here too were the sparse furnishings of the tent, the low table with a few bowls, the pile of shaggy bedding tossed on the floor. “Look!” Tarvik cried and pulled the scarf from my head. My hair tumbled loose and fell across my shoulders. The girl gasped. “She is an outlander!” “Look closely, Nance. Who do you see?” He smoothed my hair with quick nervous strokes, brushing it back behind my ears and then running his hand over the top of my head and then down my back. I stood motionless, wanting to scream at him to stop touching me. Instead, I clamped my mouth against my fury and held my breath. Until I figured this whole deal out, I needed to stick to my “suck up to him” plan. The girl approached, her light eyes fear widened, her childlike mouth open and her tongue pressed against her upper lip. Slowly she circled me as though I was a bush and she searched for berries, while I stared at her. She barely reached my shoulder in height, but then, none of the men were much taller than I and I am average height. Her hair was lighter than his and had more curl, blond but without the yellow brightness, and appeared to have been chopped off with blunt scissors, standing out in all directions from her head and barely covering her ears. It fell forward across her forehead to brush her thick eyebrows. Her blue eyes were a shade darker than his, a gray blue, and framed by short white lashes. She wore this sleeveless tunic of rough linen, dyed in stripes similar to those in the scarf Tarvik carried. It hung almost to her knees but was slit open on the sides from hem to hip, no belt, no zipper, nothing to make it fit, just a pull-over-the-head straight cut. Her face, arms, even her legs, were covered with tiny freckles. She drew in a quick breath, reached out a small hand and caught a strand of my hair between her fingers. She rubbed it as though feeling the texture. “Yes! Yes, you’re right. Where did you find her?”

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“In the forest. She says she flew over a mountain. I do not believe that.” “Oh.” She pressed her small hands to the sides of her face and stared at him. “Tarvik, they promised.” “Never mind now. Where is my father?” “Kovat has gone south. Word came that the warlords of Thunder gather in the highlands and he seeks to cut off any plans of invasion.” “He should have sent for me!” She frowned but didn’t answer. “I think he sent me on that hunting trip so I could not go on this raid with him,” Tarvik stormed. “You may be right. He came here before he left and prayed to the Daughter to protect you and guide your rule of the city in his absence.” “I would rather go with my father and fight! I am no child to spend my days overseeing a city. I suppose I must return to the castle and send for my men.” “What will you do with her?” Nance asked, pointing at me. He shrugged, jutted out his lower lip, glared at me, then said, “Leave her here. If you care to keep her alive, you must make her a templekeeper.” Thanks a lot for asking for my input, fella. Before the girl could argue, he threw open the door and strode across the courtyard and slammed the gate closed behind him. He was big on striding in his fancy boots, that boy, but what kind of hit me was that he did it like a dancer, light, on the balls of his feet, his heels barely touching down. Oh right, most actors study music and dance because there are a lot more chorus line parts out there than there are speaking leads. She approached me cautiously, as though she expected me to attack her. That was a new experience for me, as I am definitely the desk job type, not built for mud wrestling or anything. “Do you speak our language?” she whispered. “Yes.” “Do you have a name?” Back to that, were we? I decided to try it on her and see if she challenged me. “Stargazer.” She shook her head. “I do not know that name. I hope my cousin was right when he chose to bring you here. You must do what I say.” “Why?”

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“I can keep you alive.” “Always good, but what’s your motivation?” She smiled suddenly and her round face dimpled. “You are not very bright, Stargazer. Even I could see my cousin Tarvik wishes you alive. And he could someday be ruler. I choose not to displease him.” At least the girl was up to answering questions and that put her way ahead of anyone else I’d met since I’d cooled my feet in that stream. Maybe through her I could find out what was going on. Although she spoke as though my life was no big deal to her, she seemed to want my company. At the table she filled cups and bowls, then told me to join her. Avoiding the really gross smelling hunks of mutton, I found enough to eat. The circle of candles cast a wavering light, burning with an odd odor of wax, more like the smell of cooking oil. What the hell were they using to make candles? Think about it, every mall has a candle store and they all smell of perfume or spices, so these folk must have been doing some back to nature gig and was I ever unqualified to join. The floor was soil, scraped smooth, and the walls were hewn rock. No plaster or paint, not even whitewash. Stranger yet, no window openings broke the solid wall, only the door through which we had entered and another across the room. Overhead the candle ring hung on a long chain. When my gaze followed the chain upward, I saw in the ceiling a wide hole that opened to the night sky. “What is this place?” I asked. “A leftover movie set?” Telling me to follow, Nance moved softly to the far door and opened it. We stepped into a dark, narrow corridor. Like her cousin, she reached back and caught my wrist, but her grasp was gentle. She must have felt her way through the corridor or moved from memory because there wasn’t any light until we reached its end. Through a doorway was a larger room, lit by seven of the hanging circles of candles. “This is the temple,” she whispered. She let go of my wrist, caught my hand in hers and walked ahead of me, another hand-holder. Maybe this was the Society of Short Hand-holders. I fought back a giggle and realized I was so tired I was getting slaphappy. At one end of the room on a long slab of stone a candle in a twisted stand flickered and reflected its light off a small pile of gold objects. She led me to

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the stone and pointed at a bowl beneath the lamp. It held several gold arm bands such as Tarvik wore, and a pile of wilting flowers. “My lord Kovat’s offering,” she said. Touching her fingers to her lips, she added, “Look up.” Damn. Looked like an altar, all right, right out of a horror film, the kind where they drag in the damsel, tie her down, then stand around and listen to her shriek while waiting for the hero to rush in and save her. Hadn’t seen anyone today that I would count on to save me. Painted on the stone wall above the altar were dark shadow shapes of human forms. Reaching past me, Nance lifted the lamp until it lit the two figures drawn on the wall. Whoa. I stepped back and studied the whole image. The woman’s hair was long, dark straight, and she had dark eyebrows and long lashes, no particular ethnic group, just a generic mix like me. The man who stood beside her resembled her in coloring, except for his eyes, and his face was thinner. There was something familiar about them both. They would have blended in at a family picnic back when my family was doing picnics. The woman’s hair was twisted above her head, held by threads of gold and shiny bits of bright stone. Nance raised the lamp higher. Above the two heads a golden circlet glittered in the flame, catching the light and shooting out reflected glitter like some oversize halo. After Nance replaced the lamp on the rock, she led me behind the rock to another doorway and into another room. Its walls and door were covered with draperies. Here she relaxed, slowly letting out her breath. Peering at me, she said, “Do you know them?” “The portraits on the wall? No. They look more like me than like you, but I don’t know them.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe you. Did you not recognize them at all?” “No. Does it matter?” Stamping her foot, she snapped, “Not to me. I shall call the guards and let them drag you to the prison cell if you do not wish to trust me.” “Should I trust you?”

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Her face dimpled. She grabbed my hand. “Yes, I want you here as a priest and templekeeper. For years I have been alone in this place, except for the slaves who bring me whatever I request, and they don’t speak. I need someone else. You could be my friend. I would so like a friend.” “Oh come off it, Nance. When did you get here, two weeks ago? A month?” Her little round face scrunched into a perplexed expression, freckles and all. “I have always lived here. My needs are left at the gate. Other than my cousin, you are the only person to ever enter these rooms where I live.” “Explain. Give me the big picture because I am totally missing some clue. What is this place?” “A place of prayer. Have you no temples in your land?” Her voice dropped to a dismayed whisper. “Have you no gods?” “Define gods,” I said. Damn, she sounded sincere and that was scary. A mixture of confusion and fear crossed her face. Like Tarvik, her emotions were easy to see. “The Sun is our god. The Sun shines above the heads of the Daughter and her beloved. She, too, is a god. Do you not know her face?” “Sorry. Why, is she famous? Rock star? Film star?” “Look! Look here!” Nance cried. She reached behind a curtain, pulled out a small hand mirror, and held it up in front of me. I glanced at it to satisfy her. Yup, dark hair, narrow face, a bod that bordered on skinny, me and a few million other women. “Okay, we have similar coloring and maybe I look a bit like the both of them. Is that what you mean? But so do lots of people.” “No one here! No one I have ever seen before!” “You’re putting me on and I am tired of it, Nance. Come on, I don’t mind playing games but I have had a long hot exhausting day and honestly, I am ready to head back to Seattle.” Do I sound impossibly thick headed? Okay, if I woke up on Mars my reactions would be the same. I would be in denial for a ton of reasons, even when little green people tried to steal my shoelaces. And that’s about where I was, not on Mars but definitely in denial because I knew gut deep by now that Nance was not an actress, not a festival participant, not anything I had ever met before.

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Nance said, “That is the Daughter and her beloved. They arrived during the time of the fever and she saved my uncle’s life. That is when he knew she was the Daughter of the Sun, the daughter of a god greater than the Thunder god. He built this temple for her and her beloved. He is sworn to her service, as are we all, and I was chosen by her to be her priest until her return.” “Where is she now?” “Their ghosts left their fevered earth bodies eight years ago. Before she died she told my uncle I must be her priest and she and her beloved must leave us. Their souls hungered for their home in the heavens, yet one day they would return. I was seven years old then and I have lived here since. I had a nursemaid for companion until she — she — she died, too.” Her lip quivered and tears shone in her eyes. “I have lived alone here for three years now.” My astonishment blotted out my discretion. “The sun is not a god!” “Not a god? Then what power keeps the Sun in the sky? I have tended this temple all these years, waiting for the Daughter’s return. Now I see you and you look so much like her, you, too, must be a god and I will serve you with my life.” Nance knelt before me, which was really creepy, and buried her face in her hands. Her small shoulders shook with sobs. I didn’t know if she cried in joy or sorrow. But damn, the tears were real. Which meant hey, Toto, I wasn’t in any known American city anymore. Even Disneyworld couldn’t have conjured up this place. And you know what finally convinced me? Disneyworld might toss in similar illusions, but down the hall there would be proper rest rooms. No clean and shining tile here, not even running water. So that’s when I accepted as fact somehow I was now in the middle of Weirdville surrounded by people who took beheading seriously and me without my trusty troll. Back in Seattle, in my own weird neighborhood I had friends who, from time to time, had a neighbor show up on the doorstep to tell them they had inherited magic tendencies, anything from wizard to psychic, and it was time for them to either follow that path or learn to keep things under control, because the deal with inherited magic is it tends to put force behind emotions. Um, for example, a fight in your own kitchen with your own boyfriend could blow out the neighbor’s cable reception. So anyhow,

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whether anyone in Mudflat wanted to admit it or not, facing up to genetics was necessary. Gotta say, I know a very long list of magic sidelines and have heard a lot of prophecies, but never have I known anyone who was pronounced a god. Time for diplomacy, cooperation, and a whole lot of readjusted attitudes. How must a god act? I couldn’t imagine. Terrified I might be forced to play a god, I grasped her shoulders and shook her. “Stop that noise! Nance, listen to me, I need to know everything you can tell me about this place.” I said it firmly. She stared up at me and smiled through her tears. “I will do whatever you bid me, friend of the Daughter.” What could I bid that would give me the best opportunity to remain alive and eventually escape? “Start by telling me how the Daughter got here.” I knew how she left. She died. I wanted a better route out. “She and her consort appeared. From the outlands.” “Okay, is there a path? Do you know the way?” “Of course not. There is no way. They came by magic, the same as you.” “So you’ve never gone outside?” “How could I? Only a god can find the way. Though I think when we die, that’s where our souls go. If you find a way to the outside, you will be dead when you get there, so you would be foolish to try.” What big choice did I have? I said, “Teach me how to be a priest.”

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Chapter 4 When I thought of the years I had studied astrology, days bent over charts, nights peering through binoculars, my life added up to nothing more than years of hard work turned into nonsense. Shoot, even learning to check credit records turned out to be a waste of time. Or maybe not. That move kept me from hanging around and being controlled by Darryl. Still, whatever else he had in mind, I doubted Darryl had ever considered beheading me. Nothing in my horoscope hinted at a career as a priest in a barbarian temple. Okay, maybe they weren’t barbarians, but they also weren’t actors and whoever they were, I was stuck with them, which is probably why I kept thinking of them as barbarians. It was survive or perish time, inspiring me to work hard at my new role. I memorized the senseless chants Nance taught me. When I asked her if they were written down someplace, so I could study them, she frowned and asked me to explain what I meant. “In a book, maybe? Or never mind, if you can rustle up a pen and paper for me, you can recite the chants and I can write them down.” “Book? Pen? What is that?” Sure, I realized there wasn’t a hope for a computer in a place that didn’t even have indoor plumbing, but I didn’t expect to have to strip bark off of birch trees and write with ink made from plant roots. “What do people here use to write on?” “Write? Explain.” Oh. The barbarians were illiterate. Why had I presumed otherwise? “How did you learn these chants?” I asked. “The same way you must learn them,” she scolded. “The Daughter said a chant and I said it after her until I had it memorized. And then she taught me to put together chants and make new ones to fit the occasion.”

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Hmm. As the chants told people what to do and how to behave, composing chants could be a powerful tool. Was it possible I could compose a chant that made clear to them that all outsiders should be returned safely to their homelands? That seemed unlikely but worth thinking about. I practiced speaking chants in a flat, unemotional tone. “You did it perfectly,” Nance cried, her eyes and mouth wide, her eyebrows halfway up her forehead, her hands clutching mine. “For me, keeping my face blank is the hardest!” For me, trying not to laugh was the hardest. I learned to lift the oddscented lamps and swing them above my head, while I gyrated before the rock she called an altar. Odd plumes of scent floated through the cut grills of these small metal lamps we carried on chains, much like incense. More difficult were the heavy candlesticks used in another part of the ritual. Like Tarvik, she touched me constantly, nothing more than brushing her fingers against my hand as she walked by, and once pressing her palm to my shoulder with a quick touch, almost as though she meant to reassure herself I was truly there. I had seen small children do that with parents, but not people our age. When we hugged, we had a reason. Umm, except for Darryl. Those flowers and kisses hadn’t meant a thing, not that there had been many. Nance wound my hair up on top of my head to match the style of the Daughter’s hair in the portrait, and into it she wove gold threads and bright ornaments. She dressed me in a long velvet robe dyed in strange and lovely patterns spreading like moonlight across the fabric, rich deep purples and blues. The robe hung straight from my shoulders to my ankles and was belted with a rope of gold silk ending in beaded tassels. “This robe, it’s way too long for you, ” I said. “You’re the same size. I thought you would be,” Nance said, and it took me a minute for the brain to wake up. So it wasn’t only my face that resembled the poor slob hiker who had stumbled into this place fifteen years ago and been dubbed a god of sorts. We were also the same height, sort of spooky, but also useful. The clothes were loose. Footwear was the right length but wide. So she had more padding than me. I’d like to say that I’m trim, but probably skinny is closer to the truth. In the time my predecessor was here, she had acquired a

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collection of robes, tunics, pants, as well as sandals and boots, all still stored in the temple, all available for me to wear. Am I superstitious about wearing the duds of the dead? It beats facing each day with one pair of shorts and two tee shirts. I buy most of my clothes at second-hand stores, anyway, so I was okay with Madame X’s leftovers. The next day I dragged all the stuff out into the courtyard and did some heavy soaking and scrubbing, then hung both clothes and footwear in the sun to dry. Nance danced around me complaining bitterly, but Nance was easy to ignore. Three days later, robed and jeweled, I faced Tarvik when he led a procession of his guards into the temple. Amazing how our grasp on reality morphs. At first he was a bothersome kid in a costume, then I figured he was a member of a game, then an actor in a reality show, and now I accepted him as the son of some sort of ruling family in a puzzling setting. Magic? Time warp? Had I fallen down a rabbit hole? Nance placed me at the front of the altar gripping a lighted candle in my hands. I stood quietly, froze my face into a mask imitating the faces on the wall, and held my eyes as wide open as I could manage. Nance had drawn dark lines around my lids to make my eyes appear rounder and darker. She had even pasted glittering bits of metal the size of grains of sand in my eyebrows. They itched, and it took considerable concentration not to scratch at them. When she worked on me, she constantly stroked my face or brushed back my hair with her fingertips. It was annoying, but when I tried to shrug away from her, she looked so hurt. Her last gesture was to hug me tightly before leading me into the altar room and to whisper, “You look wonderful. I know you will do well.” Both my robe and my hair ornaments matched the portrait of the Daughter. And in the shadows cast by the candles, my gray eyes must have looked as large and dark. You could have crashed a lightning bolt through the temple. Tarvik’s men gasped and fell back from him. They bowed and made strange motions in front of themselves, leaving me to watch in silence and wonder if they were bowing to me or if they were making signs to ward off evil. I stared straight at Tarvik. His face paled but he made no sound. Nance,

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who stood to one side in the shadows, began the ritual chant, her voice high and clear. “Daughter of the Sun, speak for us. Carry our devotion to our god. Lay down our gold and promises at the blessed feet of the Sun. Beg him to smile on us, his forgotten servants. Tell him of the black winters, the hunger. Thank him for sparing us from fever. Remind him of his promise.” And so on, blah, blah, blah. Now I picked up the chant, did a singsong straight-faced version. My voice was lower than hers. The men who had murmured in fear now fell silent. It was hard to look at all those earnest faces and not giggle. How could they believe I was a priest or maybe even related to gods, and why would they believe anything so absurd? “When our ghosts are released from our bodies, remember us, Daughter of the Sun. You eased our pain when you were with us. Ease it now, through our god. Guide us to the land of immortality. Save us from the dark and cold.” What had they been thinking, those two hikers who stumbled into this place? Because that’s who they must have been, lost campers, same as me. Was she a doctor or just a mother who knew home remedies that helped clear up a flu epidemic? Were the chants no more than a trick to control the barbarians and keep herself and her boyfriend/husband/whoever alive? Or had she believed them? Oh well, a few years in this funny farm and maybe, like her, I’d be composing prayers to myself. Tarvik’s followers dropped to their knees, bowed their heads and repeated the chant. Tarvik walked slowly toward me. He wore a long cloak edged with fur and in his outstretched hands he carried a bowl. Nestled in a silk cloth was a pile of gold threads, not gold colored, no, real gold spun fine, like the ones Nance wove in my hair. There was also a finger ring with a large purple jewel, amethyst maybe? And all his trappings, the armbands and rings I had thought were costume jewelry? I now knew the kid was a walking Fort Knox. I nodded and he passed by me, setting the bowl on the altar. Then he backed away, as one of the slaves would do. “The Daughter of the Sun accepts your offering,” Nance chanted. “Have you a request?”

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Tarvik stood in front of me, staring, his arms hanging limply at his sides, his eyes wide, his mouth open. The word that popped into my mind was “besotted.” I am average pretty and have had a fair number of boyfriends, but none of them ever looked at me like that. Nance repeated her chant. “The Daughter of the Sun accepts your offering. Have you special requests?” Tarvik said slowly, still staring at me, “May my gifts buy victory for my father, Kovat.” Nance chanted, “The Daughter of the Sun watches over her servant Kovat.” When Tarvik did not move, Nance repeated her chant. The third time she said it, I thought about snapping my fingers in front of his face. Fortunately that wasn’t required because he blinked, lowered his gaze and backed away from me. Then he knelt on the bare earth floor and recited long chants with Nance. I stared down at his bent head, his hair a thick mop of gold in the candlelight. Watching him was somewhat pleasant. Nothing else was. My legs were tired and my ankles itched where my robe touched them. My arms ached from the weight of the candle in its twisted holder. Although Nance had told me the chants comforted her people, they weren’t doing a thing for my weary bod. At least these folks all wore flat shoes and so I didn’t have to stumble around on heels. After a few eons, Tarvik and his men rose, backed out of the temple and then closed the double doors. Nance flew out of the shadows, dashed across the room and dropped the bolt. I set the candle on the floor and rotated my shoulders to loosen them. Then I scratched the itching bits of glitter from my eyebrows and next I bent over and scratched my ankles, all very unpriestlike behavior. Running to me, Nance threw her plump arms around me. She laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks. “Did you see his face?” she cried. “He dares not harm you now. Nor will the others. You are safe with me.” “Oh, yah, I’m hot.” “Are you? I’m so sorry, is that robe too heavy?” Explain hot? Nah. “I mean, I feel like a damn fool.” “A fool? Stargazer, you look like a god, even Tarvik saw that. Indeed, I know now you are truly a god, for the Daughter herself protects you.”

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“Why do you think that?” I asked. “You stood before her altar as her priest and none doubted you. If you were a false god, she would have struck you dead.” If I were to be struck dead, it would not be by the Daughter of the Sun, I knew. Much more worrisome was a ruler called The Slayer. “How often do we have to put on that show?” “My uncle and his castle guards come to the temple once every four days. In his absence, Tarvik leads them.” “And the rest of the time?” She grabbed my hand and led me to the small chamber whose walls were hung with draperies. We got out of our costumes and stored the velvet robes and gold offerings behind the curtains. “The rest of the time, Stargazer, we do as we please so long as Kovat believes we are in the temple. Hurry now, change out of your robe and I will untie your hair.” Nance pulled a sleeveless tunic over her head, but she gave me a tunic with long sleeves to wear, light cotton slacks, and leather boots, all leftovers from the Daughter. Next she tucked my hair into a scarf. “There. Now no one will notice you.” “Not notice me! Wearing boots and long sleeves and a scarf over half my face in the middle of the day!” She giggled, and though it was easy to see she was pleased, I didn’t get the joke. “The sun will be gone soon. And when I go out, I always drape my head in a scarf as do all women. Otherwise our skin turns red. Does not yours?” “What would make my skin turn red?” “Sun and wind.” “My skin tans from the sun, doesn’t often burn, it’s not like we live in the Sunbelt. And how fast am I to stride past people in these boots so they won’t see my face beneath my scarf?” She clapped her hands in delight and danced around me. I’d never known anyone so easily excited. “You shall see!” she cried. She led me back to her outer room opening into her private courtyard. Into a large pouch she tucked cheese, bread, meat, an assortment of root vegetables, and a flask of the mead. Enough, I thought, for several days. She

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fussed around, rolling small blankets and gathering items we wouldn’t be using in the courtyard. This looked way too familiar. “Tell me we aren’t going camping.” She ignored me. When the sun dropped beneath the far hills, she pulled a scarf over her own head, skipped into the corridor behind the temple, stopped, turned and listened. Smiling, she reached up to the blank wall, grasped a metal candle holder jutting from the rock and pulled it. The rock moved, turning until there was room for us to crawl through. When we were on the other side, she pushed the rock back into place. “A secret door,” I exclaimed, stopped to examine it. I ran my palms across the smooth rock wall, searching for the seam. “Who put it there?” “The castle and stables were built generations ago, before remembering, and the door is forgotten. Kovat built the temple against this wall, unknowing of the door. After my nurse died and I was left alone here, with nothing to do all day but search and touch every item, I found it.” A horse snorted. I spun around to face a room filled with horses, separated from us by their feeding troughs. They stood quietly in two neat rows, turning their heads slowly to peer at us. Against a far wall slouched an old man, his eyes closed in sleep. He snored into his short white beard. He was the first barbarian I had seen with a beard, and it grew in thin tufts along his jaw line. Nance ran across the stable to him, shook him and made little trilling sounds. The old man slowly opened one eye, peered at her from beneath his bushy brows, then muttered vague sounds and closed his eye again. To my surprise, Nance kissed his wrinkled cheek. He stretched his arms, twisted his head in lazy circles to loosen his neck, then opened his eyes and stood up straight. Spying me, he said, “And who be she? The new priest?” “Her name is Stargazer and you must pick her a proper mount.” He rubbed his beard, moved cautiously toward me, ducked to peer beneath the fold of my scarf, and clucked his tongue. In his slow, deep voice, he said, “Leave her.” “Why, silly love? She cannot spend her days in that gloomy place, no more than I can.” “Outlander. Slit your throat for you,” he said.

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Nance jutted out her lower lip, reminding me of her cousin. “Stargazer is my friend.” The old man’s eyes hardened. “I go with you.” “You cannot. Who will care for the horses? When the guards come to the door and find you gone, they will enter, find three horses missing and come searching for us.” Her voice softened into a wheedling sound. “There now, old Lor, old love, you do not want to keep me prisoner in this pile of stones and I cannot leave Stargazer alone. She will be good and do all I say, will you not, Stargazer?” She did not wait for my answer nor did the old man. He could barely take his gaze from Nance. In his face shone a fierce love and fear, as though she were his only child. “Come now, Lor, what can Stargazer ride? Make it gentle. She is not used to horses. I know! Give her Black. Black will follow Pacer.” He grumbled and argued, but Nance ignored him. He gave up, no surprise because Nance had the art of wheedling down pat, and at last he led two horses from their stalls and fitted them out. I watched him buckle straps and smooth blankets, not a skill I intended to learn. “Here, Stargazer, you ride Black,” Nance said, in a tone as calm as if she were asking me to put on a scarf. “I would rather die first,” I said firmly, thinking I would die anyway if I got onto a horse by myself. The old man’s lip curled. What busy faces the barbarians had. I might have laughed if they had not been trying to hustle me to my death. “Afraid of a little mare, Stargazer?” he asked, probably thinking he could shame me. He guessed wrongly. I told him, “Yes. I have never been on a horse except when dragged onto one by that wretched Tarvik.” He made a hiccupping noise, his weird attempt at laughter, then grabbed me about the waist and before I could struggle, he swung me up onto the horse. The strength of the barbarians always caught me by surprise. Although he was no taller than I, he lifted me as easily as he might lift a loaf of bread. “Hold tight, catch Black between your knees. That’s right, dig in, lean forward and you won’t fall off,” Nance coached.

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I protested, moaned, and searched for a way to get down without falling. Lor raised his hand and brought it down hard on the horse’s rump. Black flew out of the stable. I grabbed its mane and buried my face in its neck, at the same time digging my knees into its sides. The horse lurched and swayed beneath me and I expected to be thrown to my death at every flying step. Black settled into a rhythm I remembered from the dashes across valleys on Tarvik’s horse, Banner. When I dared, I lifted my face and peered through the whipping mane. Ahead of me was the gray one, Pacer, with Nance sitting easily on it. If I really had been a god as she thought me, I would cheerfully have struck her down with a lightning bolt. The animals followed a path they seemed to know, down an edge of the hillside away from the huts and cook fires, and then across the shadow-dark plain. Pacer slowed to a walk and Black did also. I sat up, trying to retain some pride in front of Nance. She did not laugh. Perhaps she sensed my fury. “We need not hurry now,” she said. I glanced back at the city, already faded into dusk. A scattering of torches flickered on the hillside. “Very clever of you,” I cried. “And suppose I had fallen from this dreadful horse? How would you keep your secret then?” She shrugged. “A tame horse is not a beast.” “I do not know which of you is more terrible, you or your cousin,” I sputtered. She wrinkled her nose. “He is.” She led the way across the valley until we reached the low hills. We moved on steadily, with the horses following a winding path that all but disappeared in the shadows. Low trees brushed at me. The freshness of the evening air filled my lungs, sweet and clean after the smoky temple. I held tightly to the horse’s mane and gripped its sides with my legs. When I could no longer see through the dusk, I kept my face close to its neck to avoid being hit in the head by low branches. When we stopped, the shadows stood still. I could just about make out a clearing in the dim moonlight. Nance slid off of her horse and ran back to me, reached up to help me down from Black, then held me until my legs steadied. Good thing, because it was that or pick me up after a major sprawl.

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“We’ll camp here for the night.” What a surprise, lucky me, another camping trip. “And the temple?” “No one enters unbidden. If they knock and are not answered, they go away. They think I spend days alone at prayer. But the Daughter never told me to do that. Old Lor protects my secret.” While she moved about collecting wood and lighting our fire, then warming our evening meal, Nance chattered happily. “You will see. We will have great fun. I am truly glad to have you as my friend, Stargazer. Always before I have had to journey alone and how I wished I might have a friend but how could I when I am forbidden to leave the temple?” “So do you skip out often?” “As often as I can. I cannot exist alone within walls forever.” “No one sees you ride out?” “Wives and daughters of guards are allowed to borrow horses from the stable. I only ride after sundown. In the shadows and from a distance, no one recognizes me. And if they did meet me on the path, who would know me? They have only seen me dressed in temple robes, my face painted and my hair wound with ornaments. Here, stir the pot while I rub down the horses and tether them. How clumsy you are. Do you know nothing of cooking? If you burn our food then we must eat it burnt. We have no extra. Must I teach you everything? See, I have put no meat in the pot, only grain and roots, so you will eat it.” “Nance, even in his tent Tarvik had servants to serve meals. How come you’re alone in the temple?” “I could have slaves. I hate slaves. They never talk and are more depressing than being alone.” Her voice faded in and out as she moved around the horses, tending them. She added, “What about you, Stargazer? You cannot cook, you cannot ride, and you cannot dress your hair.” “I’m not a cook. I know how to ride a bus but don’t ask what that is. As for hair, I can wash and comb it,” I muttered as I tried to stir the pot with the stick she had handed me. “Be glad I do wash my hair, and the rest of myself.” Nance squatted by the fire and dished up our portions. “What do you do in your land besides wash?” “Eat and sleep and mind my own business,” I snapped.

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She laughed. “I mean, what do you do while someone else prepares your meals for you?” “I am a Stargazer.” “I thought that was your name.” “Umm, well, it is also my job.” “And what is a job?” Get me off the horse and fill me with hot food and I turn cheerful. Achy but cheerful. How much should I tell her? And if I told her, would she tell Tarvik and would Tarvik in turn tell others? Would I be less safe if anyone knew I was something other than the new priest? Carefully I edged through my words. “I study the stars. I know where they are in the sky and how that tells the future, the best choice of career, when to marry, that kind of thing.” Nance squealed with delight. “You read the future? So do the magicians, but they do not use stars. They build a fire and in the flame they see answers.” “What magicians?” “The magicians of Thunder, a crazy lot. They don’t come here any more. Kovat tosses them in prison cells and forgets them.” “Prison cells? Where do you have prison cells?” “Under the castle, holes in the ground, cold and dark,” she said. Whoa. Didn’t like the sound of that. Nance pulled sheepskins from the sack she had carried on Pacer. We smoothed them and settled for the night. I lay on my back staring at the familiar stars. Nance was a friendly girl and I liked her company but she could not replace my own world. What were they doing now, my friends in Seattle? Oh, right. Probably telling Darryl I had disappeared to who knew where. Ah, if they only knew I was now a god. One friend once said that carved on my tombstone would be the words, “She was always late.” Quite true. I didn’t do it intentionally, but I did tend to be late. But imagine adding the words, “Nonetheless, she was a god.” From her bed roll Nance said, “They read the future poorly, those magicians. If you can truly read the future, this will give you much power. I think even Kovat the Slayer will accept you if you do that.” And if a ruler called Slayer decided not to accept me, what then?

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Chapter 5 In the morning we rode into the foothills to a grassy plateau. Nance tied the horses near a clump of trees at a stream’s edge, and then led me to a cave-like shelter above the bank. Beyond the trees leaning out to shade the stream the land sloped upward, and in some distant past the stream must have been a river. Nance pushed aside a cover of broken tree limbs, and pulled out a long, peculiar bundle. Picking up one end, she said, “Catch the other end and help me carry it.” The bundle was lighter than it looked. It was longer than I was tall by several times, and as large around as my arms could reach. After we hauled it from the cave and set it down on the grasslands, Nance knelt beside it to undo the fastenings. Her fingers plucked at the cords that bound the blanket wrapping. When she peeled away the dark outer layer, a mound of pale cloth shimmered in the sunlight. There was enough cloth to cover a tent but of a weight that rippled in the light breeze. Nance drew out a number of long thin poles that formed the core of the bundle and tied them together. They made an odd shaped frame, triangular, with one side much longer than the other two. As she worked, she chattered orders at me to “hold down that corner, there,” and “look out” and “grab that” and “hand me those.” “What is it?” “Cannot you see, daughter of a god? When Tarvik told me you flew over a mountain, I thought perhaps you knew my secret.” I knelt beside her and stared first at her, then at the frame. “What are you saying?” “Can you fly or can’t you?” “Do I look like a bird?” “I can,” she said smugly. “You can what?”

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She waved her hands toward the billowing cloud of cloth and raised her chin. Pride glowed in her eyes. She said, “All those years in the temple, my life no freer than a slave’s, I would have died of boredom if I kept my thoughts inside the walls. I stayed in that narrow courtyard and watched the only free things I could see, the birds, and envied them. Then one day I dropped a scarf and watched it blow about the yard in a gust of wind. And then I knew that I, too, could be free if I could learn to ride the wind.” “Only sea birds ride the wind.” “Sea birds and Nance. Come along.” We carried the cloth up an incline above the plateau. Nance shouted directions all the way, warning me to “hold that corner, don’t let it catch the wind, keep down, take care,” until I was nearly out of patience. When she finally told me to stop and set it down carefully, I demanded, “What is this thing?” Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “My wings, of course.” “Wings?” “Yes, let me show you.” That suited me very well. It was a vast relief that she intended to show me with her own body and didn’t grab my wrist and insist that now that I had learned to ride a horse, if poorly, I could also learn to fly. Her wings were a canopy of cloth held by a frame of long poles, pretty in its shimmering brightness as the breeze lifted and swayed it, reminding me of ships’ sails. Nance positioned her wings with the point of the triangle aimed forward, above and in front of her, then wound her arms through a looped arrangement of straps hung beneath the wings. She stood for a long time turning from one side to another, feeling the wind fill and billow the cloth until it lifted one side into the air, listening to the slight flapping of its edges. She slipped her arms through the straps, her hands grasping a rod that crossed above her, and tilted herself and her wings toward the wind. I settled back on the hillside to watch, not really believing the thing would work. Nance pulled the front nose of her wing construction down slightly into the wind and ran as fast as she was able down the hill. To my everlasting awe, Nance and her wings rose slowly skyward and floated lazily out above the plateau. Damn! The girl had built herself a hang glider.

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And she had figured out how to fly it. This child-sized girl could fly, her body angled back now so that one of the straps pulled into a tight position like a belt across her body and helped support her. Her flight was similar to sea gulls, circling slowly on a breeze above a sea of grassland. And what could I do with a hang glider? Didn’t want to consider it because I tend to break out in a sweat if I have to climb a ladder. But Nance said flight made her free, and it sort of did. If she taught me to use her glider, could it carry me out of this place? Nance circled slowly downward, her glider shining in the sunlight like a giant flower petal floating on a breeze, until she reached the earth. She crumpled to the grass and the glider collapsed above her. By the time I reached her, running, she had untangled herself from the cloth and stood by the contraption, grinning. “Now do you believe?” she cried. “I believe! I believe! Teach me to fly, Nance!” Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you would be afraid.” “Of course I am afraid. But I want to learn.” “You must understand how the wings work before you can control them. I began with a scarf, first limp, and then tied to a length of thread. That failed and I almost despaired, but what else was there to do all day? I added sticks to hold the cloth rigid in a frame, then cross-sticks to keep it from collapsing.” “Brilliant!” “I am the first! I made my small wings fly by tying them to a long string and pulling them rapidly across the courtyard, running until they caught the wind and rose.” Like a kite. “And no one saw you?” Nance laughed. “Once. And what a commotion followed! They could not see the string, only the wings, blue ones they were, and I had to think quickly of a tale of sending an offering of a blue bird to the Daughter. After that, I worked on my wings only when I was away from the temple, camping here alone. I found I could lift a small bundle of twigs suspended beneath my wings and that is when I began to think of lifting myself.” “So you needed only to make the, uh, wings larger?” “Making wings that fly when towed on a thread is quite different from making wings that fly when aimed at wind currents by my running body. It

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took me two years to go from one point to the next. But what else have I to do with my time? Come along, you may as well try.” Nance dragged the wings up the hill, walked around them and showed me how to check for any damage. She taught me to position them, grasp the bar properly, throw my weight to control their soar, and oh, a thousand other rules, all confusing and terrifying. Gliding was way down on the bottom of my to-do list, probably not there at all until now, but, damn, it might be a way out. At last she let me go and I ran down the hill. I felt the wind catch the contraption, lift a side, drop the other side. I hung on, not sure what to do, and then the whole creation flipped and tossed me backwards, hard, onto the ground. Nance picked me up, brushed me off, ignored my cries of protest, then dragged me and the glider up the hill to try and try. I had indeed found a way to end my days in these lands. I would be battered to death on a hillside. Nance laughed at me and continued to pick me up and send me running down the slope. Finally, I floated above the grasslands. My flight lasted only a few moments. Torn between fear and delight I was suspended in the sky. If for a few breaths I fancied myself a bird, such thoughts fled with the crash to earth. “Landing is the hardest part,” Nance agreed as she untangled me and helped me to stand. She brushed me off, fussed over my cut knees, chattered bits of sympathy, but it was clear her real concern was for the contraption. When she was satisfied that my body was only bruised, not broken, she turned to her wings and carefully inspected every handspan of material. “Once I tried to fly with a small tear and the wind ripped it wide open, “ she explained. “Now I check and mend everything each time I fly.” The cloth was cloud-light, impossibly fragile, felt like silk. “Where did this come from? Is it used for clothing?” “No, it is altar cloth brought back by Kovat himself from his wars with the tribes beyond the lands of Thunder. He gives it as a gift to the Daughter of the Sun.” “Feels like silk. Silk, right. The Air Force used to make parachutes of silk. Does Kovat know you use it to make your wings?”

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Horror widened her eyes. “You must never tell him, Stargazer, or I swear, I will see you dead.” I said firmly, “Girlfriend, stop threatening me. Why should I want to harm you?” Her eyes brimmed with tears and her small chin quivered. “I — I am sorry, it is only — if my uncle knew —” “Doesn’t anyone notice so many altar cloths are missing?” As quickly as the tears had come, they were gone and she was laughing. “I tell them that once the cloths are used on the altar, they become sacred. Sacred cloth cannot be washed. Therefore, when they become soiled from the candle drippings, they must be burned. They think I do the burning in the altar fire. And as often as I ask, Kovat provides me with new cloth.” “And he never suspects? Huh.” I tried a couple more runs, got a few feet off the ground, and maybe could have jumped that far, but Nance was a good egg. She did her best to build my ego after I collapsed in a heap beneath the billowing cloth. “Much better,” she cried, as she uncovered me. “We must roll them up now. See where the sun falls? We will camp tonight and fly again in the morning. But tomorrow, when the sun is halfway down, we must start back. We need to return to the city after darkness.” We made camp in the woods by the stream. Although we had cooked our noon meal, we ate our evening meal cold. Nance feared wandering hunters might see the light of our fire at night and find us out camping. “The shepherds do not come onto this plateau,” she explained. “They are afraid that the monsters and the lifedrainers will come down from the mountains. Still, hunters are less careful. They might follow game here.” “What monsters? What are lifedrainers?” The only monster I knew was Darryl, but for a variety of reasons, the word lifedrainer aptly described his wizard brother. Lifedrainers, Nance said, were great hairy monsters with huge black wings, and they stole people and sucked the life out of them. In between appearances, they made themselves invisible. Worse yet, she assured me, they carried with them the seeds of fever that wiped out whole cities. “You have as much power as the ruler, if you can make shepherds and hunters believe those tales.”

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She shuddered. “They aren’t my tales. But I came to the plateau before I heard them, and have seen no monsters, so I hope the tales are wrong, that there are none near here.” “Ah. I hope so, too. Nance, how high can the wings fly?” “High? Above the plain.” “But you go up with them, as birds do?” Her eyes narrowed. “High enough to fly over the mountain, Stargazer? No. They only sail on air currents. They will not lift you that much.” Guess I already knew that gliders could swoop out and down, but they didn’t have engines, they weren’t planes, and even if I had one with an engine, I had no idea where I was. What I needed more than height was direction. Bread crumb trails. Great big signs with arrows saying, “This way out.” “I would help you if I could.” She wrung her hands and tears trembled on her lashes. “I know how sad you must be, so far from your home. Does anyone search for you, do you think?” Well, yes, back in Seattle a troll would be wondering why I hadn’t returned home. But search? Uh. He only left his basement to go to work. He’d see the lights on in my place and turn them off and he’d do it because he kind of kept an eye on the place. What can I say, I am kind of bad about forgetting to turn off water and lights, and I never remember to close windows. If it weren’t for the troll, who cares a lot more about my house than he does about me, I’d have wet floors after every rain. Also, when I didn’t return, he would fill my cat’s dish. Don’t think he actually cares about the cat, but he accepts it as part of the household, like a leaking faucet, and tends to it. My clients would be cross at cancelled appointments. And the bank manager would now have a really good reason to guarantee me unemployment. “Your friends might guess you are here.” That drugged lot around the picnic table? Unlikely that Roman and company even remembered I had been with them. Just as well because lying to Darryl’s brother could get messy. In the morning my body ached in so many places I could barely help roll our bedding and carry the glider to the hill. I lay on its slope where the sun could warm me and watched Nance sail above the plateau. She gained only

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slight lift, she was right, nothing near what was needed to go up over the trees. There was no purpose in torturing my body to learn to control her glider. Instead I gazed at the forest. If I could master this business of controlling a horse and could find paths and avoid wild animals, perhaps I could discover a way back. While Nance soared, I wandered down to the edge of the woods, found a stream. Follow that, I thought, it flows downhill, must eventually lead me out of here. A rabbit crossed my path and disappeared. There was so much undergrowth, ferns, salal, and all the things that flourish in the damp shade beneath miles of Douglas fir. And then I saw something odd. Not a little rabbit. Who can really track a rabbit? My eyesight isn’t that sharp. But while I stood in the clearing staring at the trees, a full grown deer stepped quietly onto the plain and no, it did not come out of the forest or the shadows, it simply appeared. I shaded my eyes and stared. It turned slowly, took a step and was gone. Not into shadows, not into forest, just gone. If I hadn’t grown up with mages and all their tricks, I would have shrugged it off as my imagination. Instead I walked toward the place where deer disappeared, an odd suspicion edging at my thoughts. I reached the end of the grass, continued on into the trees, did not turn, and yet, a half dozen steps into the forest I stepped out from the darkness into sunlight and was once again on the plain. Walking out of the forest. Across the grasslands, Nance waved at me. Okay, call me crazy. We returned to the temple by starlight, riding down from the plateau and across low hills until we circled behind the city to the less used slopes. Nance knew every shadow. When we neared the temple, we slid off Black and Pacer and led them quietly around to the stable. Lor was watching for us. From the shaking of his hands when he pulled the blankets from the animals, it was clear he lived with terror every moment Nance was gone. Before we entered the temple through the secret doorway, he whispered, “My lady, the prince has come twice and knocked at the gates for you.” Nance stopped. “What was he told?” “That you were at prayer and would send for him when you wished to see him.”

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She flashed her smile at him. “I will send for Tarvik tomorrow.” After we finished our supper, Nance splashed a little water on her face and went to bed, still wearing the dirt and sweat of days of traveling with horses and nights of camping. I could not possibly sleep with the grime of the journey clinging to me. Right, Seattle built a reputation for grunge bands and people still remember, but trust me, sweat and grime were never what grunge referred to. In the courtyard I built up the cook fire, checked the bolt on the gate against the guards stationed outside it, and then warmed water in a large basin. First I knelt over the basin and washed the dust out of my hair, and then I stripped and washed the rest of me, dipping a cloth into the water and scrubbing. I dearly missed the hot shower and scented soap at my own house. I cleaned my cuts, wincing when the water burned my skinned knees. I had barely pulled a fresh tunic over my head when a heavy rapping rattled the gate. I stared at the gate, unable to think what to do. Nance slept. The guards would not allow any passerby to knock. “Who’s there?” “Tarvik. Let me in, Stargazer.” I thought of refusing, considered the listening guards and decided that shouting at him through a closed gate would not add to my image as a keeper of the temple. After I opened the gate, then closed and bolted it behind him, I led Tarvik to the center of the courtyard beyond hearing of the guards, and said, “Nance is asleep.” “I do not wish Nance.” He stood in front of me, a slight smile on his face. “What do you want?” I asked. “I saw the smoke of your fire and knew you must no longer be at prayers. Why did Nance not send for me? Was she given my message?” I shrugged and turned away from him so that my face would be in shadow. “There’s a lot of rituals and duties.” “I will beat that old man!” Tarvik cried. “Lor? He brought your message. Nance knows you have been here twice.” “Then I will beat Nance,” he muttered.

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“Beat the priest of the Daughter?” In the glow from my fire, his pale face and hair shone. Slowly the deep frown softened. His gaze wandered over me, puzzled, searching, as though he expected to find in my appearance the answer to some lifelong question. Reaching out his hand, he touched my hair. Surprised, he said, “Your hair is wet.” “I just washed it.” “Washed it?” He looked around the courtyard and saw the kettle hanging from the metal arch over the embers and the basin on the ground beside it. “What is all that for? I thought you must be cooking something.” “No. I heated water to bathe.” “At night? In the courtyard?” “Where do you bathe?” I asked. If there was a tub in the castle, I was going to demand one be placed in the temple. His eyes widened. “That’s what you were doing when I saw you in the river!” he exclaimed. “I wondered why you ducked your head beneath the water.” “Tarvik, tell me you didn’t come pounding on the gate to ask me how often I wash my hair,” I said, “because that is creepy.” “No, but I will now. How often do you wash your hair?” “What! Why do you care?” He shrugged and said, “You have such long hair. It is very beautiful. It must take forever to get dry.” “And you came at night from the castle to discuss my hair?” “I often stop here to talk with Nance. There is no one to talk to at the castle, no one at all. Just guards and servants and slaves, and they have nothing to say even if they would talk.” Hard to believe. Lor seemed to know everything, and probably Tarvik’s household had its gossip line, but out of his hearing. “I told you. Nance sleeps.” “Yes — yes — only it is not Nance — that is, I wish to talk with you tonight, Stargazer.” “About what?” “Just — just to talk.” He stood with his sturdy legs wide apart, his hips a bit forward and his shoulders back, his square chin jutted out. He reminded

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me of a child trying to decide whether to smile or fight. “I had a nursemaid when I was small. In the evenings she would sit with me and tell me stories. I suppose it is childish to think of, but she knew stories about everything, about gods and warriors and famous battles and heroes and the monsters who live in the western mountains, and, oh, all sorts of things. Do you know any stories?” “What, you want me to tell you a bedtime story?” He scowled at me for a moment, which was about as long as Tarvik could scowl, and then he grinned. “Yes, do that.” He slipped out of his cloak and wrapped it around my shoulders. And then, like Nance, he caught my hand and led me over to the fire. He sat down with his legs crossed and his feet beneath his knees, drawing me down beside him. I pulled my hand free and was about to tell him to stop grabbing me when he looked at me and smiled a very sweet, very boyish smile. “Are you warm enough?” he asked. When I nodded, he added, “Good, then tell me a story.” Did I know any stories? Of course I did! Movie plots, TV SciFi shows, but all long enough to require way too much explanation and I was tired. Perhaps I could make up something short? “Umm. All right. Once upon a time there was a careless girl who forgot to check the battery on her cell phone and wandered off into the woods without so much as a compass.” “What is a compass?” “A magic thing that tells direction.” “Oh. Go on.” “So the careless girl got thoroughly lost until a boy found her and dragged her back to his castle, even though she told him loud and clear that she did not want to go with him. He had a nice little cousin who was dying of loneliness in a drafty stone mausoleum and wished for a friend. The careless girl sat around staring at the fire and wishing she had a hot shower. The spoiled boy was bored, bored, bored and didn’t know what to wish for. And no one lived happily ever after.” When I stopped talking he looked perplexed. “That’s the end? What does it mean?” “That I have told you a story and now it is time for you to leave.”

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He shook his head. “When my father returns to the castle, I do not know what he will think of you. He may not believe you are a priest of the Daughter. He may think you are merely from another tribe, and he might want to kill you. You do know that, yes?” “I like my bedtime story better than yours.” “Are you afraid?” “Tarvik, I am here because you brought me here. If your father accepts me as a templekeeper, good. If not, got an idea about how I can change his mind?” He leaned close to me, his face almost touching mine, and said softly, “That is what I wish to say to you. I will do what I can to help you. If he will not accept you as a priest, then I will ask him to give you to me.” “Do what!” He jumped up and stood over me, glaring. “I captured you! I have every right to claim you as my slave. Or perhaps you would rather be dead?” I had to use my hands to push myself up from where I was sitting. He moved so easily he made me feel clumsy, which added to my anger because I did not want to admire anything at all about this stupid brat. I pulled off his cloak, threw it at him and snapped, “Perhaps I would.” Tarvik’s head jerked back as though I had slapped him. The fire’s glow reflected off the gold ring in his ear and glittered in his narrowed eyes. “Have your own choice, Stargazer. Even a templekeeper cannot mock Kovat’s son.” While I clamped my mouth shut over the retorts flooding my thoughts, he strode to the gates, stopped, stared hard at me and then demanded, “Your knees, what has happened to your knees?” My knees burned. I knew the scrapes were all too visible in the dim light. I didn’t think he’d buy a jest about long prayers. “Replacing candles in the ceiling holders is not simple. A fall from a bench set on a table is quite painful.” “You lie,” he said softly, opened the gate and left without glancing back at me. “I don't owe you the truth,” I muttered to the closed gate, because being Kovat’s son didn’t earn him any extra respect from me. Ah. That’s because I hadn’t met Kovat.

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Chapter 6 Kovat the Slayer returned. The guards who rapped at the gate and brought the message were stiff with terror, their faces drawn down in frozen frowns. They were large men dressed in leather and arm bands, with swords hanging from their belts. They usually looked fierce. Now they looked terrified. To me one said, “Templekeeper, tell the lady Nance the prince sends word that his father, great Kovat, approaches.” “Great Kovat. I will tell her, thank you,” I said and smiled at them as I often did when I opened the gate. Nance had told me they were free men who could look at us and speak. Did I want to figure out the social structure of this place? Not until my life depended on it. Then I’d give it a thought. Until then, the whole thing made me want an aspirin. The guards had always returned my smile, sometimes with a nod. Today their expressions remained grim. All the simple routines of the temple exploded into a frenzy as a stuttering, trembling Nance pushed me into a heavy, jewel-trimmed robe, covered my face with layers of painted color, and tugged my hair into intricate swirls. She hovered over me, her fists clenched, her eyes brimming tears. “No, no, that is not right, I cannot do it, wait, let me try again!” She flew at me with her combs and jeweled clasps. “Nance,” I gasped, covering my head with my hands to prevent her from pulling out my hair in her efforts, “what are you doing to me?” “Don’t you hear the horns? Sit quietly, don’t muss that robe. He will be here before we are ready! Hold this comb, there, it will have to suffice, hurry now, Stargazer. Pray to the Daughter that you do not forget the chants.”

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Two days ago we’d lounged on a grassy hillside watching clouds. The sun had slowly crossed the sky and Nance had pouted at its hurrying. Today she acted as though she wanted to reached up and stop it altogether. “I will not forget the chants,” I said. “Ouch! That’s my scalp you’re tearing.” “If you forget the chants, you will have no scalp to tear,” she promised. Rushing before me, she crossed the temple courtyard and threw back the heavy bolts on the temple’s double gates, and then a guard slowly walked each heavy gate open on its groaning hinges. Nance’s fingers dug into my wrist. The guard, who usually lounged against the wall, now stood in a rigid pose, one hand crossed over to his sword hilt, elbow out, the other arm straight and pressed against his side. He would have made a cute model for a toy soldier. With her small head held high, spine straight, Nance walked stiffly through the gates. Beneath her headdress of fluttering scarves and jewels, her round face was a mask of white powder applied so heavily her freckles were not visible. Even in the clear sunshine, watchers could not guess her true appearance. Her eyes were framed by ovals of ash black filled with lavender powder on the lids. Her round mouth was painted to form a thin line of blood red. She had painted and powdered my face in similar fashion. Only Nance’s shining eyes, open so wide they appeared to bulge from her head, showed her terror. I felt her hand shake as she released her grasp and stepped in front of me. A line of guards marched behind us. As we wound down the hillside, throngs of people edged the path. Their unusual silence as they joined the moving crowd finally drew my thoughts away from the smothering heat of my heavy robe and itching face powder. I glanced back, noted the growing length of the procession, and saw the horror in the face of the guard who walked directly behind me. I must have committed some blunder in turning my head, don’t ask me what. Quickly straightening my shoulders, I stared forward and moved only my eyes beneath half-closed lids to gaze at the faces of the crowd. They all wore the same expression. Terror. Above the usual odor of unwashed bodies rose a sharper stench of fear.

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From the far hill a horn sounded. Across the valley and up the other hillside the huts of the city stood out in their shadows, sagging shacks of grayed wood and piled rocks on dry earth. Above them rose a cloud of dust. It spread, settled across the hills like drifting fog, then parted so that in its center we saw the first glittering armor on a horse and rider. Surging forward like the water of a flooding river, the line of warriors wound down the pathway toward us until we could see clearly the red and yellow banners flying from headgear and from the bridles of the horses. A pebble slipped between my foot and the sole of one of the sandals Nance had insisted I must wear. How close I came to bending to remove it is best forgotten, for some hunch nudged me and raised my gaze to the trembling crowd, their red faces wet with perspiration even though the day was cool. It was clear to me that unless I wanted a major increase in pain, I had to walk on the pebble while maintaining my smiley face. Like the army on the far hill, we wound down the pathway. When we reached the flat land, all the watchers dropped back so we two templekeepers led the procession to greet the returning army. We met at the valley’s center. Lights, camera, action. Nance held up her arms. Our followers stopped. Nance chanted, “The Daughter of the Sun rejoices at the safe return of her beloved and faithful champion, Kovat, ruler of rulers.” Raising my powdered face to echo the chant, I stared up past the enormous beribboned horse and its rider’s armored body into the meanest, ugliest, most distorted face I had ever seen. My mouth hung open and if I was supposed to say something, I’d lost it. Behind me the procession echoed Nance. Okay, I must admit, terror seeped through me and chilled my bones until my hands trembled within the folds of my robe. So this was the face that controlled the minds and destinies of every person present. From his high seat on his horse, Kovat the Slayer stared down at me. Across his bulging chest muscles were rows of metal discs reflecting the sun, while bands of gold circled his powerful arms. None of the luster of his armor equaled his eyes, pale water-blue points of light. His ears and nose were missing bits. His face was so twisted by slashes of old scar tissue, it was impossible to know what he must once have looked like.

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That he could remove my head from my shoulders as easily as Nance could remove jewels from my hair was clear. I fought to keep my face an unreadable mask while fear caused a river of perspiration to run down between my shoulder blades. When the crowd quit chanting, Nance said, “The Daughter of the Sun and her consort guide and protect their own.” Raising my hands slowly in the motions drilled into me by Nance, I repeated the greeting. When I finished, the silence hung above the hills and the thousands of inhabitants. Not even the wind dared snap a fluttering banner. Kovat the Slayer raised his sword, releasing the people from their invisible bonds and all I could think was, Arnold couldn’t have been more dramatic. The horses pawed and snorted, the armor of the warriors clattered, and as the villagers moved back from the path’s edge, the warlord and his army continued up the dusty road toward the castle. After they passed, Nance led our parade on a winding path between the huts, circling the hill in a long procession before we returned to the temple. The guards opened the temple gates. Nance and I entered, turned, raised our hands in a sign of blessing, and then stood silently until the guards pulled the gates closed. Nance slid the bolt into place. “So now you have seen him and survived,” she whispered. She grabbed my hand and ran with me across the yard and through the temple and down the corridor to our rooms, then outside again to our small private courtyard. We both collapsed on the bench outside the door. “What do you think of Kovat the Slayer?” “Son of a bitch.” Not much of an answer but my brain was shorting out. “I wonder what he thought of you.” “I’m alive, if that means anything.” “It means he enjoyed victory and was feeling kindly toward all of us.” And what would he do on his return from a defeat, I wondered, and then suspected it was something I really did not want to know. Or was I jumping way past unfair? Was I equating ugly with mean, and if so, dumb me. The Decko boys, both con man and wizard, were lookers, tall, personal-trainer trim, good bones, wavy hair, expensive teeth, straightened. capped and whitened. Despite the pretty, those boys were mean to the core.

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Maybe the way everyone reacted to Kovat the Slayer was a better clue. That night Kovat sent for me. Stiff-faced guards rapped on our gate and brought the message, then waited at attention outside the courtyard wall so they could usher me to their ruler’s presence. After a tearful, frightened Nance had dressed me once again in robes and jewels and paint and powder, she hugged me and whispered, “I wish I could go with you, but I dare not, as he did not ask for me. Be careful what you say to him. Behave with the manners of a slave and the wisdom of a god.” The road from the temple to the castle wound beneath the wide, starfilled sky, my familiar. It did assure me I was not in some other universe or even some other time or location because the constellations and the planets were exactly where I knew they should be in the northwest sky. Plus, they were a good deal easier to see here against clear black, than in the brightly lit city sky. As I walked toward the castle, preceded and followed by guards, my mind drew my own horoscope and surrounded it with tonight’s placements of the planets. Venus protected the First House of Self while Mars formed an unpleasant aspect with my future. And that meant? Okay, I am good at reading other people’s horoscopes, bad at reading my own. The castle of Kovat, stone walls clumsily erected and clumped together to form a number of bare, square rooms, was similar to the temple but much older. In an odd way it was typically northwest, an on-going remodel with new wings stuck any which way and corridors and floor levels not always matching. We entered through a courtyard and a wide doorway, then walked along a corridor lined with closed wood doors and a guard by almost every door. The guards’ eyes moved, following us, but they stood silent in their heavy leather vests laced over wool tunics. Sheathed swords hung from their belts. A few servants hurried by, heads bowed, carrying trays. The stale air smelled of cooking and animal skins and ashes and unwashed humans. A large scruffy dog stretched across one doorway, raised his head to look at me, before settling his chin on his paws. At a recessed archway the

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guards were met by more guards who announced my presence, then stood back. Guess I had no choice except to enter alone. From their expressions it was obvious they didn’t plan to accompany me further. Standing in the opening, I briefly glanced about the room in front of me, moving only my eyes beneath the shadow of my lashes. I have long, thick dark lashes, and I learned young that if I hold my lids half-closed, people don’t see my eyes move. The room was somewhat larger than the others but almost as bare, with a long food-laden table at one side and piles of sheepskins in the corners. By the dim light of wall sconces I could see the upper walls were decorated with the painted likenesses of animals and warriors. Kovat the Slayer sat on a fur draped chair in the center of the room. His chair was placed on a platform, probably so he could look down on those who stood before him. Behind him on the platform stood Tarvik, dressed in a fur-trimmed tunic and thigh-high boots, and to either side stood two guards. With a slight nod, Kovat dismissed the guards. They walked past me, their faces rigid, as though they believed that if they glanced at me, even with their backs to their ruler, he would know and be cranky. You don’t want cranky in somebody called the Slayer. Although the room was undecorated, Kovat was not. Gold ornaments circled his arms and hung from his ears and around his thick neck. His tunic was made of a black fur that looked as soft and supple as velvet and his leather boots were dyed dark red and oiled to a glow. A band of gold set with jewels rested on his yellow hair. His hair was thick and of the same color and texture as Tarvik’s hair, and his head was the same shape, but because of the scars, I could not guess what his face had once been. I met his stare, dared not blink, and didn’t like his expression at all. His voice, a scratched roar as though strained by constant shouting, echoed against the walls. “Who are you?” I repeated my memorized lines. “I am the keeper of the temple of the Daughter of the Sun.” He waved impatiently. “I know who Nance and Tarvik say you are. Now I ask you once more only. Who are you?” My mind blinked at the question. Did he mean that if my answer displeased him, I was dead meat? At such times, I think, the truth is the only chance worth taking.

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“I come from the same people as the Daughter and her consort.” The silence left me a moment to imagine death’s shadow melting my spine and turning my blood to sand. Terror flooded Tarvik’s face. Well, shucks, he hadn’t coached me about what to say. Kovat the Slayer stared through my eyes to my very thoughts. He hissed, “If this be so, what magic do you possess?” Magic? What magic had the Daughter possessed? Why had he spared her? Looking at him was enough to tell me he did nothing by whim. Okay, the safety of Nance hung beside mine in this spider’s web. Better come up with an answer that would intrigue him. “I study the stars and from their messages can see the future.” His thick eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “You study the stars? What does that mean?” “I chart their travels in the night sky and see in them what will come to be.” He grunted. “The magicians of Thunder see the future in fire. They are often wrong.” To argue with him the accuracy of the priests of Thunder would be to play a futile game of words and wits. Wouldn’t go there, hadn’t a clue about the extent of their abilities. All I could do was hope his curiosity about my claim to magic would keep me alive until he gave me a chance to read his stars. Then he would have to wait for the predictions to prove out. Or not. In such a case, I rather thought I should predict a major event in the very, very distant future. Elbow on knee, he leaned his chin on his upraised fist and glared at me. “Tell me this, woman. Will my next raid on the followers of Thunder bring me victory?” “Give me the moment of your birth and a day to work my calculations, and I will give you an answer.” Did a smile almost raise the edges of that hard mouth? In his eyes something close to amusement flickered, as though he saw me as a new challenge. “I was born at midday, twenty days past the Day of Equals, thirty-nine years ago come next spring.” So his Sun was at the mid-heaven in the constellation of Aries. No surprise there. Only his age surprised me. From his scarred and wrinkled

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countenance I should have thought him much older. Still, knowing he was born under the sign of Aries warned me how to speak to him. Children of this fire sign are new souls, strong-willed and often rash, sometimes too trusting. He looked willful and daring, but trusting? Midheaven. Right. Driven to succeed on one side, superstitious as hell on the other. I’d try the ambition thing first. “Your stars signify power and bravery,” I said. “Do they?” His lips curled back from his broken teeth. “My son was born halfway between the midday and the eventide, one moon and seven days past the Longest Day, nineteen years ago. Tell me what I may expect of him, you who know everything.” So the little beggar hadn’t lied to me about his age. Yah, he looked nineteen but sometimes he acted more like nine. With no time to draw Tarvik’s chart or place the planets within it, all I knew was that his birth sun was in the constellation of Leo which is also ruled by the sun, a glaring place at midafternoon. The placement seemed familiar. Oh, I thought, the moon in my own birth chart was at almost the same degree. Maybe I could never remember where I put the car keys, but I had an exceptional memory of the approximate placement of the slower planets for many years past. The placement of the sun or moon or planets in a constellation depends on the day of birth. The placement of the House cusps depends on the hour. Knowing the minute is even better, but not too dependable in our society where approximate birth times are the norm on records. Ah. If I remembered correctly, Saturn was in Scorpio in Tarvik’s birth chart and from there it did a rotten aspect on his sun. I said, “His constellation is Leo, the second fire constellation. He must journey through shadows alone.” And he won’t like that, I thought, because a Leo is a person who likes company. “What is a constellation?” “A pattern of stars in the sky.” “Draw it for me,” he said. Okay. Right. Sure. And how do I do that? I had no idea how this man reacted to questions and was trying to think of what to say when Tarvik moved past his father’s chair and held out his hand to me. I almost reached

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out because wow, did I ever need a hand to hold, and then I saw that he held something that looked like a bit of charcoal. So much for dignity. If taking a pebble out of my shoe was not allowed, was it okay to draw on the floor and what other choice did I have? Should I draw a lion? Or should I draw the star formation? I made a quick guess that people who lived so far from electric lights probably had more first hand knowledge of the night sky than I did and so I drew the pattern of the stars on the stone floor. Kovat stared at the scattered dots. “That’s the Warrior,” he said. A sword-carrying, hand-holding warrior, yes, that was Tarvik. I also should have guessed that these people would have their own names for the constellations. If I lived through tonight, I would have to drag Nance out into the courtyard to identify the constellations and planets for me and tell me her names for them. “You speak like the magicians, girl. Empty words of many meanings or none at all.” “I don’t know your history, so I don’t know the direction of Tarvik’s journey. Give me time to place more of the stars in his chart, maybe learn more about your country, and then I can tell you about your son’s future.” Kovat rose slowly from his chair and stepped down from the platform. It was the first time I had seen him standing. He was the same height and nearly the same build as Tarvik but with bulkier muscles and a thicker body. Even his hands were the same square shape. Scars covered his bare limbs and one arm was oddly bent, as though it had been badly broken and poorly healed. Had he once been a handsome boy and what had he done with his life to fill his face and form with so much distortion? The smell of his unwashed body so close to me was a bummer. His eyes, on a level with mine, stared intently. I tried not to let a muscle twitch to give away my thoughts. One thick jeweled hand rose and reached toward my face, then dropped, and I saw in his face a darting memory. “She drew me back from death,” he said. The Daughter? I’d kind of guessed she must have had some sort of medicine in her backpack. What would a camper carry? Maybe she had a prescription with her for herself, probably antibiotics, and she made a lucky

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guess? Because she sure as hell wouldn’t have been Doctors Without Borders, hiking with a complete doctor’s bag, not on the Olympic peninsula. He said, “Tomorrow you will come back and give me answers to all the questions I ask. If the Daughter of the Sun guides you, you will know the correct answers.” And if I did not? Tarvik must have shared my doubt. He said softly, “My father, no one can know all the answers to all questions. Even the gods must be puzzled sometimes.” “You think me unfair?” Kovat roared, spinning around on his heel to face his son. To Tarvik’s credit, and so far I had seen little of him that I thought merited credit, Tarvik didn’t turn away. He stared in silence at his father, not blinking. Kovat glared back at him. “No one can say Kovat is unfair, even to his enemies. On this journey’s return I have brought with me a magician of the followers of Thunder, one of their mad priests. Tomorrow I shall bring him and this - this -” He turned to me and waved his hand toward me and snapped, “Have you a name?” “I am called Stargazer.” “Stargazer. Tomorrow you and the mad magician will stand before me and I will give questions about things neither of you know. Let him consult his false god while you study your stars. We shall see who outguesses who.” To Tarvik he muttered, “There, princeling, is that fair enough for you?” Tarvik nodded. It did seem to me they might have included me in the decision making, and had I been alone with Tarvik I would have told him so, loudly, but in the presence of Kovat I did not even twitch an eyelid. Kovat marched out of the room, leaving me alone to turn and meet Tarvik’s look. He said softly, “Do you possess the same magic as the Daughter?” “I never knew the Daughter.” “I remember her,” he said. “She knew magic.” He stepped down from the raised platform and walked over to me, then slowly circled me, looking up and down in a way that made me rather uncomfortable. It was one thing to have him staring open-mouthed in the

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temple, where he would do nothing more than stare. It was another here, where who knew what he had on his mind. “Who winds it up like that?” he asked, reaching out and touching my hair. The guy really was full of surprises. “Nance, of course.” “Yes, and so added to your lack of skill at cooking, you also cannot dress your hair.” As there was no way to answer that comment without starting an argument, and raised voices in the castle with Kovat the Slayer present seemed unwise, I said nothing. “Then we must hope that you are clever at this telling fortunes from the stars, because my father has set great weight on it.” His fingers slid down the side of my face, touching me gently, and then he hurried away from me. I returned to the temple, once again with guards in front and behind me, feeling terribly conspicuous dressed in long robes and jewels, walking down the starlit path. There were a few other guards standing around, and servants and slaves hurrying by, usually with their hands filled with bundles or trays, but if they looked at me, they did it quickly and secretly. Nance waited, her fingers twisting nervously, a foot tapping with impatience. I reported the meeting to her while she removed the ornaments from my hair, helped me out of my robes, brushed them down and hung them away. Then I asked her for pen and paper. She answered with a blank stare. Ah. These people did not read or write. They had no paper, no pencils, nothing to use to draw horoscopes. “The walls,” I said finally, thinking of the paintings, “how are those drawings done?” “With paint or charcoal. I have neither.” Only later, after I had finally calmed Nance and sent her to bed, did I consider Tarvik and decide he might mean well, but he couldn’t save my neck. I had to do that myself. With only a table top and Nance’s face colors as tools, I drew a horoscope for scary old Kovat. Next, I went out into the courtyard and picked up pebbles until I had a handful. I brought them back inside and dabbed them with colors from Nance’s small pots of face paint so each one represented a planet.

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And there I was, reading a warlord’s life and my own survival in the glitter of face paint and a handful of pebbles. After long hours spent stretching my mind to recall the memorized positions of the slower planets in the sky for the day of Kovat’s birth, information I would have found in an ephemeris if I were home, I lay my head in my arms and closed my eyes. My memory of planet positions had always been exceptional but seldom burdened to this extent. If Tarvik’s gods were watching, I hoped they would give me a little guidance. I could place the slower planets, Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, who spend several years in each of the constellations. Like it or not, astronomers, Pluto swings a lot of weight in a horoscope. Oh right, astronomers don’t approve of horoscopes either, so scratch that and plow on. Even the quicker Jupiter, who moves through a constellation in a year or less, was fairly easy to figure out. Although I could not recall the exact degree for each, I remembered approximately where they would have been. But the constantly changing locations of Mars, Venus, and Mercury as they sped through the sky were impossible to recall for years long past. Might have been able to come close with a calculator, but while close is useful for a planet, forget it with the moon. As the moon moves a degree every night, no way to guess. I knew well enough where it was tonight, but thirty-nine years ago? No, Kovat’s horoscope was filled with blanks. Perhaps having one’s head removed from one’s body by a very quick and very sharp sword was not the most painful death, I told myself. At this thought, I remembered Tarvik. The kid had watched me from the moment I entered Kovat’s room, with that foolish look he wore too often, his eyelids heavy, his mouth partly open, his tongue against his upper lip. It was something Nance did, too. They did not resemble each other much but they did often use the same facial expressions. Later his face reflected shock when I spoke a bit quickly to his father. Did they have some form of address that he and Nance forgot to mention? Was I supposed to call Kovat “my lord” or “sir” or some such thing? I was perfectly willing to add any old title the guy preferred. Was Tarvik’s terror for me? Did it matter to him, then, what became of me? Hmm. Maybe I was his first prisoner and that pumped his ego, made him possessive proud.

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As I pulled a lamp closer to the chart and turned my study to Kovat’s destiny, I wondered if Tarvik had it in his power to keep me alive no matter what happened tomorrow. Didn’t think he did, yet I suspected he would try. For the first time since my capture, my thoughts of Tarvik edged very slightly toward something milder than fury. Think of the boy and there he was, like an unlucky charm. As I worried over the charts, he pounded on the gates. I rose, went out into the courtyard where embers still flickered from our evening fire, and said the ritual whois-there knowing perfectly well who was there. When he was inside and the gate closed again, I went back to the center of the courtyard and held out my hands to the warmth of the dying fire. “What is it now?” I said. “I know who you are,” he said. “Beyond what you told my father today, beyond being from the land of the Daughter.” “Not a templekeeper and not a god,” I said, looking him in the eyes. His face reflected the firelight, and it turned his yellow hair to red. “More than that,” he said. “I thought of that story you told me that did not have an ending.” “Umm, did you?” “Stargazer, you really are from outside.” I nodded. “So were they, but they were gods.” “And your question is?” “People, not gods, live here. Gods live outside, and when we die our souls go outside and join them.” He thought anything beyond the boundaries of their land was heaven? “Are you saying no one has ever gone away and then come back?” “How could they? Only the dead can leave.” I mulled that one over. “Can you go up in the mountains?” “Of course. Sort of. Part way. But we don’t because that’s elf land and it’s better to leave them alone.” Elves in the mountains? Pointy-eared, pointy-toed ballet type folk in flowing gowns and straight out of the Tolkien films? Or maybe they were really little bitties, like fairies. And was my brain imploding? Skip that thought and get back to important stuff. I didn’t want to go mountain—

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climbing, I don’t even like those climbing rock things in the sporting goods stores. “Have you ever tried to walk out of here?” “Yes, everyone does that, goes exploring. And then we reach a place where we are turned around and return.” Like what happened to me when I tried to follow the deer. “Why is that?” I asked, not expecting any answer. But he surprised me. “Because the gods protect us. They surround us with magic that keeps us in and keeps death out.” And somehow makes you invisible to the rest of the world, I thought. “So when you saw me, you didn’t know where I came from but you decided to let me live. Did you think I came from the gods?” “Not that,” he said softly. “I saw you were unarmed and you looked so very fragile and it seemed to me it would be a terrible thing to harm you.” The day had been long and stressful. I had faced the intense questioning of Kovat the Slayer, not to mention the hysteria of my roommate and the scrutiny of one too many strangers. Now I was faced with this silly boy who was as bored and lonely as was his cousin. They both regarded me as entertainment. “If you thought that,” I said, holding out my hands and ticking off points on my fingers, “when you first ordered me to turn around, then took my knife, than tossed me on a horse, then paraded me in front of your soldiers as your newest capture, why did you also think the manners of a perfect host included requiring me to sleep with a sword blade across my throat?” It was a long speech and his eyes grew steadily wider. Now it was me who couldn’t seem to shut up. I needed to find a way to even the score between us, and at the same time, I didn’t know what game we were playing. “Don’t be angry, Stargazer. That’s what I am trying to tell you. I want to help you. I want to protect you.” “Protect me? You threatened to make me a slave.” Was I supposed to tell him how wonderful he was, that I forgave him for capturing me and he had no reason to feel guilty? I would do that when he took me back to the edge of the woods and helped me find the way out. And why did I think that would not happen soon?

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I said, “So, I know who you are and you know who I am and neither of us really knows anything at all about the other. It isn’t as though we are friends. And I am sure you trust me as little as I trust you.” He stood staring at me, his mouth open, the tip of his tongue touching his upper lip. He stood there so long, I feared I would never get any sleep that night. Then he did that exit thing that left me sputtering speechless. He said, “It isn’t as though we are enemies.” He walked to the gate, opened it, and just before he pulled it closed he added, “And I do trust you.” Good thing one of us trusted me. The more I worked on my charts, the more I doubted Kovat would be impressed.

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Chapter 7 When the sun rose halfway towards the midpoint and a crescent moon lingered on the far horizon, Kovat the Slayer began his treacherous game, pitting my astrology against the tricks of the magician. The ruler’s fur-draped chair on its platform now stood at the center of the dusty castle courtyard. Tarvik stood slightly behind the chair. The castle dog lounged to one side, still looking as sleepy and disinterested as he had the previous night. If he was some sort of watch dog, I had yet to see him actually watch anything. He glanced briefly at us when we entered, then settled himself back into a motionless heap of rather patchy fur and closed his eyes. Nance and I faced Kovat. In the morning shadow by the wall I saw the magician of Thunder, a sinewy old man in a ragged cloak, with white hair that straggled down across his chin. Nance had told me the eyes of the magicians contained evil powers that were believed to cast spells on one’s mind. Did these magicians practice some sort of hypnosis? I kept my gaze on Kovat, on his son, on the ground, anywhere else at all. When the magician and I stood in front of Kovat, he said, “I will ask questions of you both, questions to which none but I know the answer. Prepare whatever it is you do.” With a smug smile twisting his mouth, Kovat relaxed back into his chair. He wore a sleeveless leather tunic held together with dark brown laces that crisscrossed the deep scars on his chest. His boots were fur. His arms were covered with gold bands and over his shoulder draped a fur cape. Through half-closed eyes he watched us as though he expected us to put on some sort of lavish performance. Unfortunately for me, I had no such tricks to offer. However, when Nance told me we would be outside to allow the magician to build a fire, I knew charcoal wouldn’t work. Besides, getting down to draw on the floor

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was a disadvantage, I mean, how impressive would I look on my hands and knees, my butt in the air? With a long pointed stick that I’d brought with me, I remained standing and drew in the bare earth the chart for the time of Kovat’s birth, with the sun and Aries at the midheaven and the slower planets in their locations for that day twenty days past the Equinox thirty-nine years ago come next spring. Saturn was in Kovat’s House of Destiny with a negative aspect to Neptune in the House of Death. Uranus was in the House of Love, but there were neither shadows nor light to affect it. Jupiter ruled Kovat’s wealth in Tarvik’s constellation. I didn't know the exact degree but it was clear that Kovat valued his son above all else. Okay, I didn't have to worry about Tarvik at his father’s hands. Unfortunately, there was no such assurance for Nance or myself. Beyond that, Kovat’s was the horoscope of a man who chose his own fate rather than fate choosing him. While I worked silently, the magician muttered and coughed and fumbled with a pile of twigs, building a small, smoky fire a short space away from my circle. Ignoring him, I reached into my pocket and the pebbles that I had painted with Nance’s make-up, each a color to match a planet, yellow for Mercury, white for Venus, red for Mars, blue for Jupiter, green for Saturn, speckled for Uranus and lavender for Neptune. I had also dug out a penny and a dime from the bottom of my backpack. Why not a penny sun? Without proper writing implements, it worked for me. Maybe believers wouldn’t think it appropriate that the lowest value coin represented their Sun god, but they weren’t going to be told the value of a penny. I had to crouch down to arrange the stones and coins outside of Kovat’s chart, where they represented the placement of the planets in the sky at the exact time on this day. I managed to crouch without falling over, and the long robe kind of added class. Then I straightened and looked up at the man. Okay, I was missing Merc, Venus, Mars and the moon inside the circle of his horoscope, but I knew where they were today. When I stepped back from the chart, Kovat growled, “What is that you have drawn?” “Your horoscope.” “My what?”

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Right. “Your magic circle. The inner circle shows the placement of the stars at the hour of your birth. The pebbles outside the circle show the placement of the stars now.” I didn’t bother with the word planets. To him they were all stars, and I was trying to convince him that one, he was wise, and two, I was knowledgeable. He leaned forward in his chair and peered first at my circle and then at the magician’s fire. “Well enough. Tell me this, magician, if you can. How did I get this scar below my knee?” Questions of great moment effecting battles and conquests had all occurred to me, because I’ve gone to way too many swashbuckler films, but I gotta confess, I never once considered the possibility of a question about Kovat’s knee. I hoped he would not expect us to identify every scar, as his arms and legs were covered with them and as for his face, couldn’t guess how it had started out. If the chill that stiffened my spine also touched the magician, he did not let it cause his voice to falter. “Tell us, oh god of Thunder,” he chanted, while reaching into the folds of his long tunic, “of the injury to the knee of mighty Kovat.” From between his fingers he dropped yellow dust that hissed at the fire’s edge and sent up a sudden, evil-smelling yellow cloud. Peering into the cloud as though it were a scroll to be read, he muttered, “The knee of mighty Kovat, ruler of rulers, overlord of all the lands, I see there the scar and a sword and a great battle, oh Kovat.” The corners of Kovat’s mouth remained curled. “And you, Stargazer?” he asked. Was the old man right? Any fool would guess a scar on Kovat was the result of battle. Was that why he asked, to lead us into a trap? I said, “The stars are as accurate as the times in which they shine, no more. The precision of the skies controls the rising of the sun, not the whims of man. To even begin to guess at the cause of your injury, I must know the day on which it occurred.” His laugh was uglier than his smile. “Very cleverly said, Stargazer. I think I will not waste a childhood scar from a broken toy on you. Tell me this, you who play with words and stars. In my seventeenth year, when I was

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younger than my son is now, was an event of some importance to me. Do your circles and pebbles show it?” His seventeenth year. I bent over the circle and seeing nothing there, I used a trick that sometimes works. I moved the sun of his birth time forward a degree in his chart for each of the seventeen years. Ah, even without Venus to guide me, I could see well enough that in that year the planet Uranus had opposed his heart, represented by the sun. Its clear message surprised me, but then I remembered Tarvik had said he was promised, so perhaps barbarians married at a young age. “You met a woman then and I think she became your mate.” I paused, unsure if I should continue. Tarvik would have been born three years later, so was it Tarvik’s mother? Except, oh, she left him. Different woman. I rather thought he would tell me to cease, but instead Kovat stiffened, leaned forward, demanded, “Go on.” So toss me off a cliff now, because I couldn’t think up a story that fast. That stuck me with what I saw and did he want me telling everyone? “When she left you, it changed the direction of your life,” I said. The sneer faded. From the folds of lines and scars on his face he stared out at me, his pale blue eyes dulled with memories he had not thought anyone could guess. All he said was, “Tell me of her, magician. I will waste no more than this second question on you.” Waving his hands at the fire, the magician caused the flames to shoot skyward, and a fountain of red sparks arched overhead. Although I didn’t envy the old boy, who obviously was no great whiz at fortune telling, I wished I knew the secret of this ability to control flames. I’d been stuck in a few situations where such a trick would have been useful. Like in the back alley behind the dumpster. “Oh mighty leader,” the magician mumbled, “Thunder blesses your armies and sends strength to your great heart and success to all your ventures through the constant prayers of myself. And though my god may not always hand me, a faithful servant, the answer to every question —” Kovat rose to his feet and roared, “Answer me, you tottering fool, or I shall return you at once to your god!”

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The shaking magician peered into his flames. “She was beautiful, my ruler. I see her face in the flames, a face of perfection and a heart to match, a kind and gentle woman, young, comely, graceful —” “What other sort of woman would I choose?” Kovat growled. “She was fair, yes, fair, small, graceful hands, the god of Thunder admires her purity of heart, my lord —” “Cease.” One word. I knew and the magician knew. If that word did no more than cast him into a dungeon for all eternity, he was probably lucky. “You tell me, Stargazer.” “I can’t tell the color of her hair,” I said. “That would depend on the coloring of her people, not on her stars.” I looked again at his signature. Venus aspected his heart in his seventeenth year where astrological progression moved the sun seventeen degrees past its birth placement. I said slowly, “I don't have her chart, but if I must guess at it from yours, it seems likely her moon or sun and a powerful star shone through, uh, here, tell me what this is.” I drew the pattern of the stars of Taurus on the ground for him. “The Silver Horns,” he said. Yes, indeed, the symbol for the bull was its horns. I said, “I think she was perhaps stubborn and although she was slow to anger, once angered she was slower to forgive.” His eyes closed. He leaned back in his chair. That his scarred face, hardened by a lifetime of battles, could still register such pain amazed me. Whoever she was, she must have stomped all over his heart and he still loved her. My words had opened long closed memories and sent him spinning through lost dreams. Slowly he said, “Enough, Stargazer. I am satisfied with your magic to see my past. Are you as able to see my future?” “That is what I expected you to ask, not questions about your knee.” The words slipped out before I could stop them. His eyes popped open. Would he laugh or run his sword through me? Behind him, Tarvik’s eyes widened and his face paled so much, the line of freckles across his nose stood out. Kovat’s fingers curled on the arms of his chair, but he made no other sign of his thoughts. He leaned forward in his chair and said, “Very well,

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woman, tell me this. My recent journey to scout new routes leads me to think I have found a way to conquer the followers of Thunder. What can your stars tell me of my success?” Walking slowly around the chart, I compared the planets of his birth with their current positions. For a battle forecast I needed the placement of Mars in his horoscope, but I didn’t have it. Still, I knew where Mars was today, favoring his sun but casting unfortunate aspects on his destiny. A victory was possible if he reached the battleground before the next full moon. I could see victory for his army, but I could not see the exact fate of Kovat. I told him so. “Where my armies conquer, I rule,” he said. “I do not see your rule extended into other lands,” I said. “But you do see my armies victorious?” “Yes. And I see a lot of blood, pain and death.” “With my army or with my enemies?” So much death answered his question in the positions of the pebbles, I turned away in dismay. I said, “Does that matter? Why bring death to so many when you could remain here in peace?” Behind me I heard Nance whisper, “Take care.” Tarvik’s rigid posture echoed her fear. Easy for them, they only heard the danger for themselves. For me it wasn’t that simple. Occasionally, when a chart displayed extremes of emotion, I glimpsed a scene. A small scrap of genetic magic that I didn’t want or need. But that’s what I got, and my gut ached, because for a few seconds it was like looking at the wide screen version, bright color, masses of writhing bodies on a battlefield. Worse than a battlefield. There were warriors everywhere, pushing their way between village huts, slashing paths clear, broadswords swinging. None seemed to notice what they struck and they were hitting children, old people, and parents trying to wrap themselves around babies to protect them with their own bodies. God, those broadswords were evil, hacking through anything, blood flying, unarmed people falling, villagers, I suppose, and all that saved me from passing out was that I could only see the scene, not hear the screams from all those dying faces. And then I was back in the courtyard, listening to the devil himself.

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“I respect this star magic that gives you so many answers, although I do not understand it,” Kovat said. “But you, Stargazer, are of no importance to me and I do not want your opinions, do you hear me?” So even in La-La Land, tyranny ruled. The scruffy dog lifted his head and studied me through narrowed eyes as though he knew I talked too much. Ah, it must be a tone in Kovat’s voice, I thought, something the dog recognizes as a danger signal. Clever dog. Stupid me. I shut up. No knowledge from my charts or mind would please a madman. “Is this all you can say, that my victory depends on a battle fought before the full moon?” I did not look again at the circle on the ground. If any further guidance lay there for this warrior who gloried in destruction, I wasn’t going to search for it. Years of reading horoscopes had taught me when to quit. With great effort, I kept my voice steady. “I have told you all I have seen.” “Well enough, Stargazer. When I return victorious, I will bring with me a crown of a warlord of Thunder and you shall have it as your prize. If you wish, I will also bring his severed head.” Damn, that sounded like a line from some sick fairy tale. He leaned toward me, whipped out his sword and jammed its point into the earth inches from the end of my toes. Guess it was lucky I was still so numb from the vision I didn’t flinch. He liked that. His smile bared jagged teeth. “But if my armies suffer great loss and I cannot capture a crown, it will not matter to you. You will have no head on which to wear it.” I lacked the courage to say, “Mister, blood soaked crowns are not my idea of what Santa brings.” Didn’t say it, but I thought it. That night when Tarvik did his bang-on-the-gate, I greeted him with a question. “After your father beheads me, who will you pester in the evenings?” He walked around me to the fire, stood with his back to me and poked at the embers with the toe of his boot. Dark oiled leather, no scuffs, live-in-acastle boots. I guess that meant he had servants with strong hands and sheepskin polishing cloths. I used to find his clothes entertaining. But now I knew that every piece of gold was bought with the death of innocents, and

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that the slave who polished the boots was probably the last remaining member of his family and had had the pleasure of watching them murdered. Somehow silk tunics and tooled belts and rings and things became that cliché of “lost their luster.” His head shook slowly back and forth, as though he was arguing with himself. I waited. When he finally turned to face me, there was something close to fear in his expression. “That won’t happen,” he said. “Ah, you will stand courageously in front of me like a big letter T with your back to me and your arms held out and tell him that he has to chop you down first before he can reach me.” “What?” “It’s from one of those hero stories. This famous warrior defied a god or something.” “Tell me the story.” “Sorry, I don’t remember how it ended, probably with both of them dead.” “I don’t like that ending,” he said. “Let’s talk about something else. I know. Those pebbles you use with your circles, are they magic?” We sat down by the fire and I pulled the pebbles out of my pocket and spread them around on the ground. “Touch them if you dare.” He looked at me though narrowed eyelids, then at the pebbles. Reaching out, he stirred them around with a fingertip, then picked them up one at a time to center in his palm and study. “Pebbles. Plain old pebbles. Different colors. Paint?” “The stuff Nance uses on our faces.” “How can pebbles give you messages?” “Okay. Each pebble represents a planet. That’s a moving star.” “All stars move across the sky at night,” he said. “Yes, but they move together in a pattern, always staying the same distance from each other. The ones we call planets do not remain in the pattern. Each moves by itself across the sky at its own pace so that through the seasons and the years it will pass through the twelve constellations of the zodiac, uh, that’s the path the sun follows.” “Which is which?” he asked, peering down at the pebbles he held in his upturned right hand.

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When I touched his left hand, he turned it palm up also. I picked up the white pebble from his right palm and moved it to the left one, and when my fingertips touched his hand he looked at me, his eyes glowing in the firelight. Perhaps not the best place to start, but I did not know how to backtrack. “That’s Venus, the brightest star in the sky, rising near the sun. It represents love.” “Yes, I have seen it,” he said. “I did not know it had a name.” Moving the yellow pebble, I said, “That one represents Mercury, a sign of wisdom. It travels so close to the sun it's difficult to see, but we keep track of it and know where it is.” “How can you do that if you cannot see it?” he asked. Explain telescopes? Right after I explained that the earth was round and men really had gone to the moon. Okay, off to Disneyland and the wicked stepmother. “We have a magic mirror that we look through and it shows many of the sky’s secrets,” I said. “So you do know magic.” Moving the red pebble from his right palm to his left palm, I said, “This is Mars. It causes accidents and violence and I think it must be strong in a warlord’s chart.” “If you know magic,” he said, watching me with that intense look that tightened his face and worried me a bit, “you can use it to save yourself, can’t you?” If Kovat lost his battle but returned alive, I rather suspected I would need something stronger than magic. The only way a telescope would help me was if I could use one to hit him over the head. “Jupiter is this large blue stone and it brings fortune and happiness. The green stone is Saturn. It can be both killer and healer.” “If you know magic, use it,” he said softly. “Tarvik, are you paying attention to what I am telling you?” I scolded. “Go on, tell me the rest,” he said. “This speckled pebble represents Uranus, which brings change and confusion. And last is Neptune,” I said, and settled the lavender stone in his right hand. Was this place land-locked? “Have you ever been to the seashore?” “What’s that?”

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“The ocean. Water farther than you can see, past the horizon, big waves breaking?” “No. You’re making that up.” He looked down at the two metal pieces still resting on his left palm, the dime and the penny. “Then these bits must be the moon and the sun,” he said. “Is there a story about each star?” “Oh you! Yes, there is a story about practically every star in the sky and I cannot possibly tell them all to you.” He tilted his hands so the pebbles slid out on the ground and then he plucked the white one up, holding it between thumb and forefinger. “Tell me the story of this one. Did you see it in my father’s chart? The woman you mentioned. My mother did not leave him, so the woman you said he loved cannot have been my mother. Are you saying he did not love my mother?” Oh I did so wish Kovat had told me to stop a bit earlier. What else was Tarvik to think? Very well, I would make a few guesses because who knew, if I had all the planets in the right charts, perhaps I would discover a few answers. I said, “I think your father had a first love that ended in heartbreak. Don’t we all? But hearts mend and your mother was his true love.” “Do you think so?” He looked so troubled, I felt a bit of pity for this spoiled boy, not a lot, but a touch. “My mother wasn’t elf, well, perhaps a small bit. My father’s mother was elf, you know.” Well, strike me with a lightning bolt. “Elf? You had a grandmother who was really an elf? What did she look like?” “I don’t know, never saw her. She left my grandfather right after my father was born. Elf women do that, run away. That’s why I wonder if the woman you saw in his past was an elf.” “Why would she be?” He shrugged, drew lines in the dry earth with a finger tip, then said slowly, “Elves are magic. The men never come down the mountain, but sometimes the women go looking for herbs and wander too far away. And get captured.” “Your grandfather captured your grandmother? So was she a slave, then?” “No. She was his wife. But she left him. Elf wives always leave.” “She left her baby?”

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“She couldn’t take it back. The elf men wouldn’t keep a halfling.” That was all very entertaining, as good a fairy tale as I’d heard. I didn’t know what to think. “So you think Kovat is half elf and his first love was an elf woman.” “I know he’s half elf. I don’t know about the woman, but once he told me never to catch an elf woman because she could enchant me.” Huh. All right, high in the mountains there was another tribe and their women were irresistible. I could buy that, but more than that, those women weren’t about to be stay captured. That would explain the runaway wife and the runaway lover. Maybe that idea wasn’t much consolation to Tarvik. Kovat’s chart clearly showed his love for Tarvik. Good enough for us Stargazers who sometimes have to soften truth. “I saw his greatest love in his chart and it wasn’t that first love,” I said. “Did this Venus star show you my mother? Tell me its story.” The story of Venus? Don’t think so. “I'm way too tired to tell you more tonight. Another time, if you can remember the names of all the pebbles, I'll tell you some of their stories.” By then I’d have thought up a story about Venus that didn’t feature hormones. After placing the Venus pebble among the others, he grinned at me. “You think I will forget. You are wrong. I will remember their names and I will remember you owe me a story for each of them.” He stood in one fluid motion, then reached down and held out his hand and pulled me to my feet. When he reached the gate he did what I now thought of as his Tarvik parting gesture. He opened the gate, stepped out, then leaned back through the opening. “Stargazer, I like stories with happy endings.” So now he wanted me, who could not control my own life, to change the stories of the planets themselves. Right, and happy ending or not, my boy, I wasn’t about to serve up a nudie Venus on a mythological half-shell. When we got around to that story, the babe was going to be a dowdy woman in a spotted apron whose favorite hobby was cookie baking.

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Chapter 8 As though I had tossed an ember into a pile of dry brush with my reading of Kovat’s future, the daily pace of our routine flamed into a roaring blaze that scattered before it all the slow, dull, sleepy activity of the temple and city. Nance rushed around me rearranging temple cloths, polishing candleholders and shouting instructions at me until I fled to the courtyard to escape her. When I pressed the gate open a narrow crack and peered out, across the valley and far hillside I could see the same craziness outside, people rushing up and down the dusty paths carrying bundles and shooing goats and chickens into pens. “Bolt that gate, Stargazer!” Nance shouted. “Hurry, I must fix your hair. Oh, that robe is worn shabby. Help me with this lamp. I cannot lift it alone.” When I tried to help her, she rushed around me scolding and complaining until I shouted, “Stop! Gimme a break! What’s going on?” “They will arrive soon and we must do so much to prepare.” “Who will arrive?” “My lord Erlan and his lady Ober and daughter Alakar and all their court and army, as though it weren’t your fault —” “My fault!” “It was you who told Kovat he would conquer if he attacked before the full moon, was it not? So instead of allowing a few moons to prepare for a campaign, he allows us only days. His brother Erlan is on his way with his army.” “What have we to do with a campaign?” I asked. “Several hundred people arriving, someone has to bed them and feed them, many will stay in the castle, you think Kovat will let his family sleep in the stable or camp out with the army?” “Huh?”

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“And that’s just the start because the army has to be fed, too, and then there’s the tournament grounds to prepare, and…oh, hand me that cloth. Nothing is polished! I think I’d better request some slaves to come scrub the temple, in case Kovat brings them in here.” “Huh?” I was still in the dark on this one. “Who do you think must bless the tournaments and lead the welcoming processions and pray for victory?” she screamed at me. “Okay, I get that, we do the chanting thing,” I said. I helped her lower the heavy black ring of candles from the ceiling. “Chanting thing, yes, and if you make a mistake no one will care,” she scoffed. “And it will cost you nothing but your life. If the battle goes badly Kovat will punish you, which you will deserve, but he will also punish Tarvik and me for befriending you. I should never have allowed you into the temple.” As quickly as Nance had exploded in anger, she crumpled into tears, threw her arms around me and sobbed, “I did not mean it, Stargazer, truly. Only I am so afraid for all of us.” “You should be,” I said. “You’ve pulled down the same candle ring we cleaned yesterday.” For a clever and inventive girl, Nance could fall apart with alarming speed. I pushed her firmly down on a bench and made her tell me all the chores that needed to be accomplished. These I put in order, gotta-do ahead of should-do. Not having Nance’s imagination, I could not see a scarf floating in a draft and devise a method to fly. No vague, outlandish possibilities clouded my direction. Nance’s sobbing descriptions of what lay ahead were so beyond my ability to visualize, I ignored her and worked methodically at preparing the temple. I scrubbed stones and polished metal and straightened tapestries and candles. Nance did request help but was told that all hands were busy making preparations in the castle. Oh for a proper vacuum, a bottle of bleach, washer/dryer, and so on. Instead I washed our tunics in a kettle of hot water in the courtyard and hung them in the sunshine to dry, even though Nance saw no purpose in this activity. “No one can see them under our robes,” she complained. And no one but me would be able to smell them above the heavy odor of population, but I did not bother to mention that. I had quite enough on my mind, with the family of Tarvik’s uncle expected soon. Included in that

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group was Alakar, Tarvik’s promised, and although I didn’t care who the boy married, I did wonder what it was about her that made her so special. Okay, I was plain old curious. Even if I had tried to picture Erlan, his wife, and his daughter from Nance’s descriptions, I could not have guessed the depth of evil that lay in the heart of Kovat’s younger brother. On the other hand, it gave me a whole new perspective on evil brothers. Darryl’s brother, back in Seattle, was a smash wizard, the only one in the city because smash wizards are territorial and competitors disappeared. His skill was limited. That’s how smash magic works and he wasn’t the brightest bulb, anyway, but he had that smash thing down pat. He could drop rumor and scandal into anyone’s life and end careers as well as personal relationships. Went by the name of Rock and nobody has Rock on their birth certificate so that pretty much describes his self-image. He did a lot of the black leather and chains thing. A smarter me would have known there was a chain from Rock to Darryl even if it wasn’t visible. It took a credit search and then a winding cluestrewn path through other records to wise me up. Big bad Rock was actually smaller and prettier than Darryl but that was misleading. Rock ran the show. He was the center of a scam scheme aimed at neighborhood politics, booked bets practically on the doorsteps of some fairly powerful folk, I kid you not, and even the well-heeled can be driven to nose-dive edge. It wasn’t the money. Most could pay their debts. It was the exposure of illegal payoffs, none of which could be traced back to Rock or Darryl, that drove anyone who would otherwise fight back out of Mudflat, leaving Rock in charge. Okay, none of it made headlines in a big city, who cared about Mudflat? But it was there, a trail of schemes, in the bank’s computer links. With me to provide the equivalent of inside info, the Decko brothers planned to toss their pebble outside the neighborhood and into city politics, watch the water rings expand, and when the local ships sank what was to stop them from going on and on? Mudflat was already a hellhole. “You jerk!” I’d screamed at Darryl after the third stalker phone call. “You think the local law won’t track you back?” Because it would. Seattle cops avoid Mudflat, oh, they drive through slowly, sure, and don’t stop and don’t ask questions unless someone is

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actually out on a sidewalk flashing a gun. Mudflat doesn’t want cop interference and the cops are smart enough to comply. Get some pressure put on by one cornered politician, a call to or from the mayor’s office, and the boys in blue would be swarming. Gotta say this for Kovat’s evil brother, he was ugly as sin but he had a whole lot more style than Rock Decko. Actually, the style was probably put together by his wife. They arrived amid flaming banners and flashing armor, a dazzling snake of color winding its way down the hillside to the city’s edge to be met by Kovat, his warriors, his slaves and his templekeepers, looking for all the world like some Hollywood production. Or maybe more like a British film with all the reality of foot soldiers in worn-over boot heels, shabby mismatched clothing, filthy hair, and dirt ground into their blond complexions. Peering out from the shadow of my heavily painted eyelashes, I watched Kovat hail his brother and bow in courtesy to the two ladies. They sat on high horses, wearing long flowing cloaks edged in fur and embroidery, their backs straight and their proud heads high. I envied their ability to look so elegant while sitting on horses. I could not see their faces beneath the folds of their scarves. They weren’t the only mystery. Mounted on a gray horse and riding a few paces behind the two women was a tall figure draped in black, a man, I presumed from the height. His cloak hung in loose folds with the hood pulled so far forward, his face was lost in its depth. Black gloved fingers, oddly long and thin, protruded from the wide sleeves. The cloak’s hem fluttered back revealing black trousers tucked into tight black boots. He might as well not exist for all the attention given him by Kovat who looked past the hooded figure and nodded at a man dressed in fur, bareheaded and blond, saying, “Hail, son of Wensel.” A chorus of greetings was exchanged, so many raised spears and swords gleaming in the sunlight, it became difficult to separate faces. I saw them all clearly that evening at the banquet table, in the glow of candlelight and the reflection of gold serving bowls. That the barbarians seated themselves at a table and ate with some degree of grace was a surprise to me, hadn’t expected that. Up to now, my eating companions had been Tarvik and Nance, both of whom sat cross-

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legged on the ground and held food in their cupped hands. They weren’t messy about it, but still, it was a long way from sitting at a table and using a plate and spoon. Woven tapestries in rich colors covered every unpainted wall and bench in the great hall. The tables, oiled to a sheen, were barely visible beneath platters of brass, silver and gold, mounded high with fragrant cakes and dried fruits. Aren’t some metals poisonous with hot foods? Oh well, I wasn’t going to eat any of that stuff. Enormous smoking hunks of meat, probably mutton or venison, drew the attention of the others while I viewed with relief the bowls of green vegetables as well as apples and berries, a change from my temple diet of root vegetables and flat bread. Tarvik entered after the others were seated, followed closely by Artur. Pausing behind Alakar, who sat beside her mother, Tarvik touched her shoulder, and when she turned to see who it was, he bent forward, put his face close to hers and whispered something in her ear. The boy was a born flirt, with that soft voice and wide grin. Alakar smiled back and then looked down at her hands, neatly folded in front of her on the table, little Miss Prom Queen, all milky skin and red-gold hair and an amazing amount of cleavage showing in the scooped neckline of her velvet dress. So what had he whispered? Had he told her that she was the prettiest thing in the room? And why should I care? Tarvik moved on behind the rows of guests until he reached his father and sat next to him. Artur stepped back to stand, leaning against the wall. A row of men stood, personal guards, most of them dressed like Artur in woolen tunics and boots, daggers tucked into belts, their heads uncovered. Behind Ober stood the strange man in the black cloak, the hood still hiding his face. Even here inside the hall his hands were encased in leather gloves. He was half a head taller than the tallest of the others. I whispered to Nance, “Who’s the hooded dude behind Ober?” She bent her head to hide her speech and whispered, “Don’t let him see you looking at him.” “No, I won’t, but who is he?” “Walking death,” she whispered and I almost exclaimed, then covered my mouth with my hand. “Who?” I hissed. “Does he have a name?”

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“He is Ober’s servant, some say he is her slave, some say he is a magician from the underworld. I have never heard a name.” Underworld. First mention I'd heard of that. I added to my knowledge of their lore, a collection of gods, an afterlife and an underworld, sounded a bit like a Wagnerian opera. Those always ended badly for the participants, didn’t they? In the shadow I could see only that Tarvik wore dark clothing, but the candles glittered on his jewelry. Around his neck hung heavy gold chains caught together with round gold medallions. He bent over his platter and used a knife and spoon, concentrating on his food and ignoring everyone around him. Rings sparkled on all his fingers. Silver goblets overflowed with mead, musty and heavy, rather like beer gone flat. Also warm. Nance warned me to go lightly but she didn’t need to worry, no way would I overindulge. Had anyone offered bottled water, I would have raised my hand. The goblets were emptied and refilled endlessly. The family of Kovat was there as well as a number of other men who were favorites of Kovat, friends or warriors, and several sat with ladies who wore velvet gowns and ornate necklaces. Heavy perfumes mingled with the roasting smells and body odors. Voices rose to a low roar of sound, fists pounded, and an occasional guest stumbled from the table to be lowered into a corner by watchful slaves as his legs gave out beneath him. Liked that scenario. Didn’t think it would work for a Seattle bouncer. At the table’s center, Kovat ruled. He rose, draped in fur and velvet and his usual gold trim, a man who moved gracefully for all his scars. His thick yellow hair glowed in the candlelight. With his goblet raised above his head, he cried, “To the joining of our armies, my brother, and our victory!” His half-brother Erlan was a big, greasy lump, clumsy, with pig eyes and dull limp hair. He lifted a goblet, turned to his wife and daughter, and bellowed, “And to the joining of our houses!” Bowing in their direction, Kovat said, “To your well being, my dear Ober, and to you, Alakar.” Ober’s eyelids tightened but she managed a slight smile.

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Beside me Nance whispered, “Kovat does not use their titles of lady and they despise him for it, but they dare not frown.” Ober’s hair shone copper in the candlelight; the shadows flickered along her smooth cream-white skin, her almost colorless eyes, and her long graceful neck. Bits of jewel and gold sparkled at her ears and throat. Like her mother, Alakar had fine features and flawless skin, but her hair was a shade of lighter red-gold, falling in a long braid down her back. Easy to see why Tarvik wished to marry her. “Why would Kovat want to insult them?” I whispered to Nance. Nance held a pear in front of her mouth and whispered behind it, “Kovat wishes to remind them they are his inferiors.” At that moment Tarvik straightened, pushed away his empty platter, reached for his goblet and glanced across the table toward us. Our glances met and he smiled at me. “But I understood Tarvik is to wed Alakar,” I whispered to Nance. She nodded. “Indeed. And from this hour, the game goes either way.” “Meaning what?” Nance turned from me, reaching across the table toward a bowl of burnt chunks of meat, still clutching in her other hand the unbitten pear. I would have attributed her action to hunger if I hadn’t glanced up and discovered both Alakar and Ober were staring at me. When I stared back, they looked away. Not until after the evening collapsed into spilled cups and side arguments and Nance caught my hand to lead me quietly away through the confusion, did I learn the cause of the tension. I saw Tarvik, watched closely by Ober, watch us leave. His pale eyebrows rose up his forehead as though questioning where we were going. “And may the Daughter protect him from the consequences of that error,” Nance sighed, sinking down into a pile of sheepskins when we reached our chamber. “Have you ever felt such jealousies? Winter drafts through open doors could not be colder.” “Family gatherings get that way,” I agreed. Nance laughed. “Ah, Stargazer. In your land do ruling brothers love each other?” “We don’t have rulers. Not that kind, anyway. So explain. Why do Kovat and his brother act like enemies?”

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“They are half-brothers, same father, different mother.” Tarvik had mentioned that his grandmother had run away from his grandfather. So Erlan was the child of a second wife. The brothers were equally scarred. I could see some of Tarvik’s grace in Kovat, but Erlan was a stumbling lump, nothing about him to hint that he had once been a looker. “What’s the problem about Tarvik and Alakar?” I asked. Nance curled up, hugging her bent legs and resting her face on her knees. “Kovat is well-pleased by the joining of his house with Erlan’s house because Kovat always expects to win. See it this way, Stargazer. Once Tarvik is wed to Erlan’s only child, the death of Erlan would put the rule of his lands into Kovat’s grasp without a battle.” “But why should Erlan die before Kovat?” “Why indeed? Not of old age, one must guess.” “Are you saying Kovat would kill his own brother? But Nance, why? And if Erlan thought so, why would his daughter wish to marry Tarvik?” “What Erlan thinks and what Alakar wishes are of no matter to Kovat,” Nance said. “If Erlan arranged a different marriage for Alakar, her husband could be a threat to Kovat, especially if Erlan picked a strong ally of his own. I think Erlan has no friend willing to become an enemy of Kovat, otherwise he would have refused Kovat’s arrangement of the betrothal.” I frowned into the lamp’s glare, trying to sort out the customs of these people. “What about Alakar and Tarvik? Didn’t they choose each other?” “Do what?” Nance sat up straight, amazed. “Do you think Kovat asked them? No. He arranged what he thought was best for himself and his son.” “That’s archaic,” I protested. “Not to mention wicked.” “Wicked? How else, then, are marriages arranged?” “By the people who intend to marry, of course.” “Do you mean to tell me your family has not promised you to anyone, Stargazer?” Nance cried. Oh, lordy, as though the aunts couldn’t make enough bad choices for themselves. “Where are your thoughts?” Nance asked. “Tell me this. Why would Kovat and Erlan want each other’s lands so much?” “For grazing, of course. We have a river that never freezes, while Erlan’s rivers turn to ice and for a while each winter, snow buries his land.

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He brings his flocks to winter down here. And in late spring, when our grasslands begin to dry out, our flocks must cross Erlan’s borders to reach summer pastures. If Kovat does not send warriors to escort the shepherds, somehow animals disappear along the way.” “Summer pasture? What is that?” “The lower pastures go brown in summer. The flocks must be driven up into the foothills to find grass. It is one reason Kovat fights the other rulers. We need to search constantly for new and better grazing.” Nance yawned. “If we do not sleep now, I will fall asleep at the games.” I held up my hand and Nance froze. She heard it too, a soft rustle, a footstep. In the courtyard. No one entered our courtyard without first knocking and being admitted by the guard. We stared at each other, unsure what to do. All right, this wasn’t my city and the chance of housebreakers was nonexistent, as far as I knew. Standing slowly, trying to keep silent, I held out my hand to her to follow as I crept toward the doorway. We left the door half open at night to let in air, so I curled my fingers around the stone edge and peered out. “Would Tarvik command the guards to open the gate?” I whispered to Nance. She shook her head. “Never has.” The courtyard was brighter than our room, the pile of embers in the center casting a low red glow, and the sky was so filled with stars and moon, their faint light touched the shadows. There could be someone or no one standing in the dark, moving along a wall. We both stood silent, listening but all I heard was the two of us breathing. “Tarvik?” Nance said. With a guard at the gate, there was really nothing that could harm us, right, and so I stepped out into the yard, started to turn slowly to stare at every shadow, but I got only as far as the gate. “It’s open, the gate is open,” I told Nance. “I closed it and shot the bolt,” Nance said. And even if she forgot, the guard would close it. A flash of reflection near the embers caught my eye. I crouched down, reached out, saw it was nothing more than a popped ember, and then saw the odd brushing of earth, the imprint of a pointed boot at the fire’s edge.

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Not the guard, they all wore heavy boots with round or square toes. About now my instinct was to run back in the chamber, bolt the door and hide under a pile of sheepskins, but if I did, I’d spend the night quaking, right? So I turned off my brain and ran to the gateway, stared out, saw nothing, looked to the side where the guard always stood, saw nobody, heard a low rustle of sound, looked down. Our friendly neighborhood guard lay stretched out on the ground, face down, not moving. Calling for Nance to help, I squatted down by him, rolled him over. “Too much mead,” Nance sputtered. Leaning over him, I held his face between my hands and sniffed. “He hasn’t been drinking.” “Then what’s the matter with him?” Hot sticky on my hand, damn, I carefully turned his head, couldn’t see in the dark but I could feel the wound at the side of his head, a slight bump and a trickle of blood. After sending Nance for a rag and a mug of water, I tried to check him for any other injuries. I didn’t expect to find any and didn’t, so I thought it meant I could move him, as though I’d know. Sometime in the past I should have sat in at one of those first aid lectures at the center, obviously, because all I had to go on was a guess. When Nance returned, we pulled him to the wall and sat him up. With the wet cloth I dabbed at the bloody spot. He moaned. “I’ll shout,” Nance said. “The guards up at the castle will hear.” “Don’t,” I said. He was coming round, his eyes fluttering. We saw this guy daily and he always smiled, except when Kovat was in town, never gave us any bother, stacked wood when we needed more, delivered to the gate whatever we asked for. If I could box him up and ship him home, what a terrific addition he’d be to my house. “Why not?” Nance asked. “What if your uncle thinks what you did, that he drank too much?” She didn’t have to answer. We both knew really bad things would happen to a guard who slept on duty. So we brushed him off, washed him up a bit, and when he came round, gave him water. When his brain woke up, he looked terrified.

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“Somebody hit you,” I said, crouched down next to him, hanging on to the mug of water for him. “Did you see who it was?” He started to shake his head. I bet that hurt, because then he whispered, “No. I don’t remember seeing anyone.” “Okay, he snuck up on you,” I said. “You’re gonna have a lump on your head.” “I am fine.” Shaking, wide-eyed, heart probably racing. So fine, in fact, he teetered on the edge of dying of fear and it wasn’t his assailant he feared. “Sure you are. Listen, we aren’t going to tell anyone, so you don’t need to, either.” He looked at me for several slow minutes, then took the mug from me, his rough fingers brushing mine, and gulped the remaining water. He whispered, “Thank you, lady,” and we both knew he wasn’t thanking me for the water. A glance at his boots took care of my other question. Like I thought, they were square across the toes. It was easy to guess who had knocked out the guard and entered our courtyard. Had he stood outside to listen to us? Had we said anything? I really hoped he’d gone off bored silly. “Don’t joke about death,” Nance said as we walked back across the yard toward our door. “He isn’t death.” “How can you be sure?” Did I believe in Death with a capital D? A hooded skeleton carrying a scythe? Oh come on, of course not, but she had a point. He fit the role, had the look, exhibited all the warm charm, plus he’d attacked our guard and managed to silently climb high enough on the wall to reach over and push back the bolt.

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Chapter 9 The games. Raised platforms edged an empty field that was about double the size of a high school football field. Some of the platforms had canopies with banners flying from the posts that supported them. In their shade were long benches on different levels, like bleachers. On the centermost platform was a raised stand with a draped seat for Kovat, putting him higher than everyone else. Steps led from the field up to the platform, each step edged with poles topped with banners. At the base of the stairs and a bit to the side stretched the scruffy dog I had seen in the castle. As always, he lay with head on paws, ignoring everyone. “Who or what is that dog?” I asked Nance. She smiled, before forcing her face back to its solemn temple expression. She murmured softly, although I doubted anyone could hear us over the crowd noise. “An old pet of Kovat’s. Useless, but he is fond of it.” “I haven’t seen any other dogs.” “The hunting dogs are kept in a kennel.” Nance and I sat on a bench to the right of Kovat, and Erlan and his wife and daughter were on his left. Behind them stood a row of servants and at the back of the platform stood a row of guards. Bleachers on the side platforms were filled with the banquet guests. “Who are they?” I whispered to Nance. We leaned toward each other, trying to remain unnoticed with our scarves pulled forward, but that was impossible, seated as we were beside Kovat. She whispered, “That row, those men are all captains of Erlan’s army. The one in green on the far platform is Wenslaven, son of Wensel, who rules the land adjacent to Erlan’s city and the three with him are his sons. I rather think the tallest one expected to be promised to Alakar. He asked to be in the games, but Kovat refused him. An insult, truly.”

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“What’s your gossip connection, girlfriend?” She dimpled and whispered back, “Lor hears it from the guards. Just watch. I have seen Alakar twice glance at him.” “That’s terrible,” I said, thinking Alakar should marry whom she pleased. Nance replied, “It will be if Kovat sees her rolling her eyes at the son of his enemy.” The games that followed equaled the chaos of the banquet. Watched by gaudy spectators and stuck with grand and lengthy toasts plus the background babble of the crowd, combatants managed to pass most of the day standing in knots arguing the rules, which made me kind of homesick for Saturday afternoons in front of the TV. Was this their version of a timeout? The contestants were young men from both armies, and also sons of captains and a few others whose relationships to Erlan and Kovat were complicated. Nance tried to explain marriages, alliances, chosen heirs, and so forth, until my head ached. Or maybe the headache was from trying to keep my lashes down while I searched the seating area. With head ducked and half-turned, this maneuver made me cross-eyed. Nance hissed, “What are you doing?” “He’s behind Ober,” I whispered, took another quick glance, saw the hooded head swivel away. We were both doing this furtive watch thing and maybe I should just stand up and wave to the bastard. I might have, except Kovat was between us and I didn’t think he would be amused. “Who’s behind who?” Nance asked. “Ober’s Deathwalker critter. He keeps watching us.” Nance paled and whispered, “Stop that! Do not look at him again.” When Kovat nodded at us, Nance and I removed our scarves and stood up in our temple robes. As usual, Nance had wound up my hair with ribbons and gold threads. As usual, my hair was already slipping out, a few messy strands hanging in my face. We chanted over the bowed heads of the contestants, promising that the Daughter of the Sun would insure victory to the most courageous.

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A chill wind whipped our robes and pulled loose another strand of my hair. As I turned to gather up my scarf and sit back down, I found myself meeting Ober’s stare. She looked away. I turned to hide my face from her and whispered to Nance, “Whenever I look in that direction, Ober is watching us.” “I think its you she watches,” Nance replied. “I wish I knew why.” The men on the field formed themselves into teams and were identified by colored arm bands or ribbons tied to belts, same old same old, a playground method. Not that there was anything playground about the games. These guys played for blood. Occasionally the groups broke, the crowd roared and opponents from the two armies challenged each other to a variety of weird confrontations I could not figure out, despite Nance’s explanations. What occurred was this. Either one on one or group against group, moving, sometimes on foot and sometimes on horse, all carrying similar weapons or all barehanded, they threw themselves at each other. The purpose eluded me. It was, I think, clear to the onlookers because they roared in unison, both cheers and insults. A bit like a soccer game or even football, with weapons added, except there were no goals and no one was actually trying to move in any direction on the field. Men fell from their horses, crashing to the field with their spears caught in each other’s leather tunics, ripping off metal discs and probably bits of flesh. They rained blows on each other with the flats of their swords and clutched each other with bare hands. I did realize that the combatants who spent the least amount of time lying on the ground drew the greatest approval. I am not as stupid as all that, but why these men chose to throw themselves at each other’s fists and swords was what defeated my understanding. When I murmured my confusion to Nance, she asked, “Do they not play games in your land?” “Games, yes, but the players don’t try to kill each other.” “What do they kill?” she asked. Surprised, I blurted, “They kick balls around, not each other.” “Why would anyone kick a ball? What sort of game is that?” Okay, let’s not even think about explaining baseball.

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The combatants on the field paused to take turns mounting the steps to our platform to stand below Kovat. He gave short announcements of their names and accomplishments and handed them small gold medals. Ugly wounds afflicted all the participants, winners as well as losers. The crowd played side games spasmodically with sometimes greater violence than did the players on the field. Certainly they were noisier. Tarvik stood facing an opponent, his feet wide apart, his hips a bit forward and his shoulders back, his arms hanging loose at his sides, his fingers only slightly curled, his chin up. He wore a leather tunic and a leather war helmet which covered his head but not his face, and high boots, but his arms and knees were exposed. The crowd quieted and drew closer to the field to watch. Some signal was given, the waving of a banner and a scream, as best I could tell. He bowed and drew his sword in one smooth motion. My breath stopped, and maybe my heart, when he threw himself forward, diving, it appeared to me, directly onto his opponent’s sword. Templekeepers did not shout and did not show preference, Nance had warned me, but she whispered, “Well done.” “Well done? He looks to me like he’s trying to kill himself,” I muttered. “No, no! He gains a point. See there, now he is uppermost.” “But they will murder each other!” Nance grinned and whispered, “Sometimes but not very often. Those game swords are made of wood, not metal, and they are blunt, the edges dull. And lighter than a real sword. They bruise but don’t cut very well.” As if that information was going to console me. Okay, in a way it did. It meant I probably would not see heads actually rolling across the field separated from their bodies. The dances were more pleasing to watch, and an escape for me as I looked away from the games and toward the fields beyond the games. I could hear the music in the distance, light tunes which were unfamiliar to me but played with the tinkling of many bells and the soft thumping of a drum to keep the rhythm. Watchers lined the clearing, but beyond them, many small groups gathered in the sunlight to dance. Dressed in their dull brown and gray clothing, they had tied bright ribbons in their hair and around their necks and on their wrists, really, it seemed, anywhere a bit of color could be

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attached. They twirled in circles around each other, moved in and out, forming patterns that reminded me of square dancing. From the distance I could not see the steps they did, but I could hear their laughter. They swung about each other, holding hands, linking elbows, all very pretty and much more to my liking than the fighting. When I looked back at the field, Tarvik stood with another man, their backs to me. Tarvik was easy to spot with his mop of yellow hair. His companion’s hair was a duller shade. He was a bit taller than Tarvik, and a bit narrower. His leather tunic left bare his muscular arms. “Is that Artur with Tarvik?” I asked Nance. “Yes, he serves as Tarvik’s companion guard. Handsome, isn’t he?” she said. “They fight together as a team.” I had no idea what she meant until they pulled on their war helmets, turned to stand back to back, and drew their swords. They were then circled by a team of four other fighters with drawn swords. Artur and Tarvik turned inside the circle. “If they can hold off the challenging team for a set amount of time, they tie. If either team drops a sword, the other gains a point.” “Is that a fair match, four against two?” “Not for some. But Artur and Tarvik always win.” “What an odd game. Who thought of that?” I asked stupidly. “It’s how warriors fight in real battle, covering each other, only then they are trying to defeat their enemies, not just win points.” Defeat. Another word for slaughter? By day’s end, Tarvik had claimed a handful of medals from his father, winning, Nance said, more than any other contender. When he came toward us and mounted the steps to face Kovat, I turned away, unable to look at the dirt and clotted blood that covered much of him, nauseated by the thought of the pain he endured. The boy was as deranged as the rest of them, I suspected, because he was grinning as he pulled off his helmet and bowed to Kovat. He seemed extremely pleased with himself. Turning, he put his hand over his heart, looked to the other side of where his father sat, smiled, and bowed again. Nance and I tried not to be too obvious, but hey, we had to swivel about to see. Alakar nodded and then gave Tarvik a quick smile, and damn, the girl even batted her eyelashes at him.

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She really was a girl and I am not being petty. Way too young to be promised to anyone, I would have guessed her at ten except for the figure. Standing, she might have come up to Tarvik’s shoulder, a little bit of a child-sized thing, except for the voluptuous bod. Nance confirmed that Alakar was sixteen or so and when I was about to put my foot in my mouth, I realized that Nance and Alakar were about the same height. Comparison stopped there. Nance was cute. Alakar was glamorous. “Good thing he chose her to bow to,” Nance whispered. “Either of us would have told him to go wash,” I agreed and she giggled. “She travels in the shadow of her mother’s deathwalker,” Nance whispered. “So almost anyone looks good to the silly hen, even our Tarvik.” “About the deathwalker, get a look at his boot toes if you can.” “Far more fun to watch my cousin play lover.” It was hard to believe such a muddy, bloody boy could arrive at the evening banquet with clean hands and face, wearing dark red velvet with fur collar and cuffs and a fair amount of gold bangles. He even wore a crown that night, a small gold circlet inlaid with a pattern of red stones that sparkled in the candlelight. “Garnets,” Nance said. “Tarvik’s favorite jewel.” “Garnets? He mentioned something about a garnet prince.” “That’s Tarvik’s position as the heir of the house of Kovat. It’s one reason he likes garnets, but the other, ah, look at him dressed in red velvet.” “It’s his favorite color?” “It’s his favorite self,” she scoffed. “He knows he’s handsome and he likes showing off.” “Then you’d think he wouldn’t take chances on getting cut and scarred,” I said. Nance giggled. “The only thing he likes better than dressing up is doing anything that gets him top to toe muddy.” That evening’s banquet exceeded the previous one in both sound and length. Too much rich food and too much drink and more noise and shouting and arguing. As though there had not been fighting enough at the games, occasional guests fell on each other and had to be pulled apart and sometimes carried out of the hall.

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“Wish they’d carry out Ober’s guard with his feet in the air. Gotta have pointed toes on his boots.” “He neither eats nor drinks,” Nance said. “Honestly?” “The dead don’t,” Nance muttered. We hung in there for a while hoping he’d walk past us, but no luck, and feeling beat from the long day, we cut out. When we returned to the temple, we could still hear the noise from the castle. Odd though. When we left the castle with our guard, the deathwalker still stood behind Ober like a frozen shadow on the wall. As we went down the path, I saw tree shadows shiver in the wind. And then between them, clear on an open stretch of starlit path, I saw another shadow, long, a hood shape at the top, for the time it took to blink and then it was gone. Not even time to elbow Nance to look. “Be careful tonight,” I said to the guard. “I think someone followed us.” I guess no one ever said anything like that to him before, because he blinked, stared at me, then mumbled, “Thank you, lady. I will be watchful.” Nance wandered inside to her bed and fell onto it fully clothed and covered in paint and gold threads. I removed the heavy ceremonial robes and the jewels and paint required by the banquet, untied and unwound my hair and combed it out, then washed myself top to toes. Before tumbling onto my pile of blankets, I pulled on a clean linen tunic. Perhaps I should have been surprised to hear the pounding on our courtyard gate later that night, but by now I was rather used to it. So when Tarvik began his usual noise, I recognized it, rose quickly before he woke Nance, grabbed a blanket to toss around my shoulders and ran across the courtyard to the gate. I unbolted it and let him in, glanced at the guard standing there at stiff attention. It wasn’t fun but better than another whack on the head. To Tarvik I whispered, “Hush, Nance is asleep,” as I closed the gate. “Did you see how often I won?” he said, his grin a bright slash in the shadows. “Hard to miss, sitting right there at Kovat’s feet,” I said. “But you looked away when I came up the stairs. Why did you look away?”

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“You were covered with blood and dirt. Umm, I didn’t mind the dirt so much.” His eyebrows rose. “You minded the blood? But it is hard to fight without a little blood.” “I suppose it is,” I agreed, then thought of his bow after the games, hand over heart. “Tarvik, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be calling on Alakar?” He moved over to stand by the embers in the firepit at the center of the courtyard. He was still dressed in the fur-trimmed velvet tunic and velvet pants and fur boots of his banquet clothing, and wearing a heavy gold necklace of chains and medallions. He’d left the crown at home. With a shrug, he said, “Yes, perhaps no. She is always with her mother and they retire early.” “You could have banged on their door.” His blue eyes slid between his narrowed lids and he chewed his lower lip. What was he thinking that he did not want to say? Was Nance wrong? Were Tarvik and Alakar in love, in which case, her mother’s constant presence must have annoyed both of them? “She is very beautiful,” I said. He nodded but still said nothing. Reaching out, I brushed his hair back from the side of his face with my fingertips. His yellow mop of hair felt thick and soft, reminding me of the fur of my long-haired pet cat back home, but that isn’t why I touched him. I was looking for the wound beneath his hair. On his temple was a jagged cut, a raised red line of dried blood centered in a purple bruise. I caught his hands in mine, held them in front of me, and looked first at the backs of them, then at the palms. Rings gleamed on all his fingers. But even in the shadows I could see the raw scrapes. Then I met his puzzled gaze. “Are you in such a rush to look like your father?” He stared at me for a long moment before saying, “I think you speak out of place.” “Right. That’s me. Out of place. It’s only that I don’t actually care to see you injured. Don’t you feel the pain?” “Oh.” His face relaxed into a smile. “I think you have a very soft heart, Stargazer.”

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“That or a very soft head,” I agreed. “I am sorry you did not enjoy the tournaments.” He sounded so disappointed, I said quickly, “I liked the dancing.” “There was no dancing tonight.” “No, this afternoon,” I explained. “Beyond the game field I could see people dancing in circles, and they had bells and a drum and ribbons, and oh, it was very pretty to watch.” “That would be the country dances, yes. I join them sometimes on feast days when I do not have to be at the castle.” “Do you?” That surprised me because I remembered the day he brought me to the city, walking his horse on a path that wound between the huts of the poor, and everyone we passed had looked at the ground as though they were afraid to look at him. “They don’t mind? They let you join them?” “I take along a couple of servants carrying a few jugs of mead, then ask them to teach me the dance they are doing.” “That would do it,” I agreed. “You think they are afraid of me, as they are of Kovat. They really are not, Stargazer. Besides, I dance very well. Shall I show you?” When I nodded, he said, “These are not dances to do alone. You must join me.” “But I don’t know your dances.” “Watch,” he said, and he hummed a tune and circled around me in a series of steps, and I don’t know why I was surprised to see that he could dance. He was well coordinated, light on his feet. He took a step sideways to stand by me, shoulder to shoulder, and caught my hand in his. “Now, you, too,” he said, “foot out, cross over, yes, good, cross back, two steps to the side.” Very much like square dances. Unfortunately, I’d never done much of that since grade school and didn’t know any steps. He slipped the blanket from my shoulders, dropped it on the ground, and put his arm around my waist. “I love your hair this way, hanging down,” he said. Humming softly, he swung me around in a series of steps that pulled us together in a position more like ballroom dancing and from habit I slid my hand across his shoulder and turned to face him.

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He stopped. “What are you doing?” “Sorry, didn’t mean to lead.” “Lead what?” “I’m out of position, right? Should be side by side or further apart and circling around each other or something.” When I tried to back away, he held me where I was. “You know a different dance. Show it to me,” he said. “Umm, all right, I’m not much good at this. When you step forward, I step back. Yes, like that. Hmm, this is hard to do without music.” “How can I tell which way to step? I need to feel you moving, oh, your dance, you must be close to each other, this close?” he said and pulled us together and I gave up. I could remain stiff with a few inches between us and our noses practically touching and my back aching or I could go ahead and dance with him. “Okay, Tarbaby, keep humming,” I said. “What’s a tarbaby?” Oh shoot, that had slipped out somewhere between his name and calling him baby because it was late and I was tired and not thinking too clearly. Thinking even less clearly, I said, “It’s from a story.” “Tell me,” he said, and I figured I might as well because he would pester forever until I did. “Okay,” I said, and gave him the quickie version of Joel Chandler Harris’s story. “There was a clever fox and a tricky rabbit and they had this on-going rivalry. So the fox took some soft warm tar and shaped it into a baby doll and sat it in the middle of the road, then hid himself in the bushes.” “What’s tar?” he asked. “Hot sticky black stuff used to pave roads. It gets hard when it cools. So anyhow, the rabbit saw the tarbaby and he asked its name. It didn’t answer. It couldn’t, but the rabbit didn’t know that, so he hit the tarbaby and his paw stuck. That made him so mad, he hit it with his other paw, then kicked it and kicked again, and when all four feet were stuck, he butted it with his head. “The tarbaby was bait to catch the rabbit and it worked, because that’s how cute the tarbaby was. So, then the fox popped out of the bushes and caught the rabbit.”

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“Are you sure this story has a happy ending?” he asked. “Listen up, stop interrupting. The rabbit was sneaky, told the fox ‘please don’t throw me in the briar patch’ and so that’s what the fox did, tossed him into the patch. That patch was home ground for the rabbit and so he escaped laughing.” “And what happened to the tarbaby?” “Hmm. Never thought about that.” “Your stories have strange endings,” he said. “Now I want to try this dance of yours.” “Okay, where’s the music?” He hummed softly. I caught his free hand in mine and put my other hand on the back of his neck and relaxed so that our bodies pressed together, my face touching his cheek. He stopped and started to turn his face to me. “No, fella, keep humming or the dancing lesson is over,” I said firmly, then guided him through some slow steps. Had to admit to myself that I really enjoyed dancing with a guy who was the same height. He knew where our feet were, both his and mine, and I wasn’t in danger of squashed toes. Or of getting a crick in my neck from looking up. Did I mention we fit together very comfortably? Tarvik was a natural, sensed the rhythm and followed the instructions I whispered in his ear. “Okay, step forward, now the other foot, turn slowly, pause. Again.” And again and again, him in his fur boots and dark red velvet, me barefoot in a plain linen tunic, and although I’ve never been much of a dancer, he picked up on what we were doing and did it so easily that he made me believe I danced well. Whether that was true or not, the dancing plus the guy kept me warm in the cold night. As I made a turn under his raised arm, our faces almost touched and he said, “Where is your home, Stargazer?” Startled, I said, “Seattle.” “What is a Seattle?” “A big city.” “And this is how you dance in Seattle,” he said, and he began dancing again, but from the look on his face I thought he was thinking more about Seattle than about dance steps.

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We circled the fire going through any number of steps, until I was breathless and laughing and finally stumbled. He caught my elbows, held me upright, then realized how cold my skin was and rubbed his hands lightly over my arms. Picking up my blanket from the ground where he had dropped it, he wrapped it around me, saying, “Where’s your cloak? Go get it, I’ll wait.” He looked wide awake and ready to dance until dawn. I said, “I need to sleep now. There is some sort of procession in the morning. I think Nance and I are supposed to lead.” “Yes, my father and uncle will be starting off on their new campaign,” he said. “You should leave now,” I said. “Oh. But you haven’t told me about this city you live in. Do you live in a castle?” “Um, no, I live in a house.” A nice warm little house with soft beds and hot water, I thought, but didn’t want to try to explain that. “Tell me what a house is and what does it look like.” “Tarvik.” Catching his face between my hands to hold his attention, the way one does with a small child, and looking directly into his eyes, I said in my firmest voice, “I will tell you a story about my house some other time. Right now it is late and I am tired and I need to sleep. ” “Oh! Yes.” He turned his face so quickly that, before I could pull my hands away, he pressed his mouth against my palm. I stared stupidly at my hand, where he had kissed it. “Goodnight, Stargazer.” He opened the gate, stepped out, pulled it almost closed behind him, stuck his head back through the opening and said, “Perhaps it is as much fun to dance as to fight. I will think about that.” I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but I knew he was laughing at me. In the morning before the sun’s rising, and certainly before mine, the outer gate shook beneath heavy blows. I heard Nance squealing and rushing around, then calling out for the identity of our visitor. A moment later she returned to shake me. “Stargazer! It is Kovat himself! Quick, be up!” While I sat on my pile of blankets and sheepskins trying to recall where I was and why, Nance rubbed paint and powder on my face.

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“We’ve no time to pile your hair. Here, you comb it out while I fetch a robe,” she said. “Why is he here so early?” I mumbled. “Do you think I am going to ask Kovat why he comes to his own temple and demands to see you? Hold quiet, that sash is wrong, there, oh, where are your sandals?” “Never mind the sandals,” I said and left her hiding behind the door. The cold ground of the courtyard beneath my bare feet helped wake me up. To my amazement, Kovat waited alone by the gate, wrapped in a furlined cape against the winter morning. If there was some required greeting with which to hail a warlord who called at daybreak, no one had told me, and so I kept my mouth shut. Also, I was fighting back a yawn. Need I mention the deplorable lack of coffee in this place? That alone had convinced me I wasn’t dreaming because even in nightmares, coffee exists. “Come near and listen carefully, woman,” Kovat said. “I will not speak with you again until my return.” Remembering my manners, I managed to mumble the standard clerk phrase, “How may I help you?” “You say you are of the line of the Daughter.” Had I said that? I didn’t remember but I wasn’t about to argue with the man. “She saved my life. She saved it when all the potions and prayers of the magicians of Thunder failed. And she stopped the fever spreading through the city. In the years that followed, I had no reason to regret discarding the false magicians and their god and building this temple for her. The Daughter’s prayers protected me and my army from disease as well as defeat. Whether your powers are as great must still be proved. You have powers I have not encountered before. What I must ask is if your calling binds you to truth.” “I can only read what the stars choose to show me,” I said, unsure what he wanted but not wishing to annoy him. His face was red with anger, I thought, but not at me, not yet. “What is true will prove itself. For now, I must trust your stars. I will give you the birth hours of my brother, his wife and his daughter. You must look at their futures.”

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“That takes time,” I said, but I didn’t want to annoy him and added, “maybe a day?” “I am leaving today. You will do this as quickly as you can. The women will winter here at the castle with my son. If there is anything in their stars of which he should be warned, you will do so. All else you will save for my return.” He recited for me the birth hours of Erlan, Ober and Alakar. By this time I knew these people, with their lack of a written language, kept their family histories in their heads, and with a surprising amount of detail and accuracy. I repeated slowly the information he told to me, marking them in my mind. “Make no error. If you guide me well, I will repay you. Fail, and you will not have another chance.” Sick of his threats, I blurted, “If the Daughter had made an error, would you have removed her head?” He scowled back at me. “Perhaps she was a god. Perhaps she was human. I do not know or care. What I know is that the god of the Sun shared his secrets with the Daughter. When you have saved my life, ask me again. Until then, you are in my debt for sparing you this long.” He started to turn away, then stopped, pivoted toward me on his heel and said, “The man who guards Ober, you have noticed him? Of course you have. I knew him well once but he is changed. I do not know the hour of his birth but I know the day.” I nodded, too angry to speak but intrigued by this additional request. “If you can explain him to me on my return, I will be impressed.” And so would I, because my curiosity about the man who remained hidden in his cloak and hood was super sized. Nance thought Ober’s guard was either a servant or a slave. Or death. What sort of chart would death have? Okay, death wouldn’t have a birth date, but an executioner or an assassin would. After Kovat told me the man’s day of birth, he hurried out of the gate, walking with that same swinging stride that reminded me of Tarvik, lightfooted. The rising sun flamed his hair to gold. When the sun topped the courtyard wall, Nance and I led the procession. We walked in front, followed by a small group of guards and then Kovat and Erlan and their captains seated high on their horses. At the edge of the

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hill, where the path dropped away to the valley, we stepped to the side of the road and watched them head off to battle, still chanting, our arms raised, our hands pointed toward the sky. From his tall horse Kovat looked down and my glance met his stare. His eyelids were oddly twisted and narrowed, and between them his eyes were a pale icy blue. I worked at keeping a stiff upper lip while my mind shrieked, “Help!” Nance and I remained at the ridge and chanted Kovat and Erlan down the hill and across and out of the valley, trailed by their armies. We both drooped beneath our layers of paint and fur and jewels, dead on our feet from loss of sleep. We kept our bodies and faces rigid as our temple guards escorted us back to our courtyard. The clatter of the bolt on the gate after our return to the temple was the last sound I wished to hear until evening mealtime. And if wishes were horses etc., right? Before the brothers and their armies were out of sight, the guard knocked on the gate. And before I could shout, “Go away, Tarvik,” Nance hurried across the courtyard to call, “Who is there?” The guard spoke clearly in a loud formal tone, which meant he was not at ease with our visitor. “The lady Ober waits here and requests an audience with the templekeeper.” He was our friend for life, that guard. Don’t know if he suspected Ober’s man of attacking him, but his announcement sounded like a warning. Nance’s mouth opened in a wide “o”. We looked at each other, speechless, and then she slid the bolt and peered through the crack. As she was still in temple dress, she said, “My lady, did you wish to enter the temple?” I heard Ober’s voice say, “No, I would like to speak with the templekeeper who assists you. Your courtyard will do.” She could not see me standing behind the gate at Nance’s side, and so I mouthed, “Let her enter,” to Nance, then stepped back to the center of the yard. Nance slowly opened the gate to a width no greater than needed for one person. With that amazing calm she could draw around herself when she needed it, Nance said in her temple voice, “This place is sacred and forbidden to men. Your guards must wait outside but you may enter, my lady.”

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Ober, wearing an embroidered cape of green velvet, walked slowly through the gate, saw me and came toward me without so much as a nod to Nance. Nance closed the gate behind her. Ober’s copper hair was piled on her head beneath her hood, so only a few stray tendrils curled around her face. The colorless eyes stared at me from that spooky white face and I hadn’t a clue what she wanted. She said, “What is your name, templekeeper?” I said, “Stargazer.” “And you came from the outlands,” she said. Her eyes never left my face as she added, “And what is it Kovat wants of you?” As I had no idea what she was talking about, I kept my mouth shut. He had expected me to be in the procession, he accepted me as a templekeeper, he hoped I knew magic, and he humored his son by letting me live. Which of these facts mattered to the wife of Kovat’s younger brother? When I didn’t answer her, she said, “He spoke with you early this day, before leaving on his journey. I though perhaps he left a message for me.” Ah, so that was what she wanted to know. What would she think if I told her he gave me her time of birth so I could read her destiny? I said, “He came to remind myself and the priest of the Daughter that he required our blessings for his army.” She did not believe me, which showed in the narrowing of those weird eyes. No smile, no frown. No trace of a line on her white skin. “Nothing more? No message for his son?” “His son is at the castle, right? Where Kovat could speak directly to him?” Still ignoring Nance, Ober turned and walked back to the gate. She stood facing it as though she had no ability to open a gate, and so I went around her to open it for her. I was perfectly willing to wait on her like a servant if it hastened her departure. Inviting her to join us for tea never crossed my thoughts. We were closer to each other than I cared to be. She turned, spent a moment staring at my temple garb, my paints that were by now smeared on my face, then said, “Stargazer. I know that word. Kovat spoke of magic circles in which the stars were drawn. Is that what you do?” That question hit too close, and I replied, “I know nothing much about magic.”

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Which was not quite true. However, I knew everything about circles and stars, and I could imagine Tarvik raising his eyebrows and saying, Liar. She thought so, too, it was clear in her expression, but she said nothing, only walked slowly through the gate and toward the castle. I closed the gate, slumped against it, made a face at Nance who looked about to shriek. We dragged our weary selves to our chamber. For once I was too exhausted to wash away the face colors and dust before sinking into my pile of skins and blankets. Yet after I closed my eyes, thoughts battled sleep for my attention. And the loudest question was this: What did Kovat expect me to find in the star signatures of Erlan, Ober and Alakar? I asked Nance, “What do you think of Ober?” I had expected a reply about false pride or greed or dishonestly, perhaps, but not what I got. Nance rubbed her eyes and said in a weary voice, “She must be a sorcerer.” “What kind of a sorcerer?” “One with magic, but not a magician. More powerful, I think. Remember what I told you about lifedrainers? Sorcerers can call them.” “Call them from where?” Now I was awake and alert. “From the mountains where they live, if there really are such things.” “Why would anyone want to call them?” “Oh, I don’t know.” Nance sat up and looked at me. “Rulers can raise armies and go to battle for what they want. Others cannot. And so they call on evil magic to aid them. The lifedrainers are evil magic.” I didn’t find any lifedrainers in any of the charts when I was finally able to draw them. Perhaps that’s because I didn’t actually know what a lifedrainer would look like in a chart. But I certainly did find evil.

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Chapter 10 When Uranus and Saturn have a negative aspect on the Twelfth House of Death, all the strengths of Aries cannot assure protection. Kovat was powerful, ruthless, and probably clever, but Aries is a young soul. And now the Aries warlord marched to battle leaving his son and his city unguarded against the darkest signature I had ever read. If I had seen Ober’s horoscope before advising Kovat that victory lay in the waxing of the moon, I should have had a different tale to tell him. What I saw now was what he must have guessed. When I read his brother’s wife’s horoscope, I knew this was the danger he suspected, although he had not been sure of its source. I think his suspicions were with his brother or one of his brother’s men, left behind with us. He was wrong. “If you see what I suspect is there, you will know it,” he had said, adding, “and you will warn my son.” To be an astrologer is simple. All one needs is a talent for mathematics and a dependable memory. To give advice is immeasurably more difficult. How come no one told me this when I first started out? Time before and now again I found my mind in disagreement with my emotions. Oh, to be able to fling myself headlong among the sheepskins and weep and kick, as Nance occasionally did, and then remind myself that other people’s fates were not my fault. The big deal was this. Within that evil horoscope lay threats against Nance and myself. And tangled in these threats was a chance of a split in castle loyalties through which I might escape. But I could not be sure. Again, with no knowledge of the positions of the faster planets for the birth times, there was a whole lot of info missing.

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Plus, even if I got myself out of temple and hilltop and city, I wasn’t sure I knew the way to that stream where I had entered. Was it a couple of days journey? Back home I could get lost between the bus stop and my house. Oh right, it was that dead-on sense of direction that landed me here in the first place. So if what I saw was true, and in the coming battle attention turned away from me, would I be smart to let the battles rage? Damn, a combination of aspects hinted that all these other conflicts could give me the way out, show me how to cross over into the outlands. It was a hint, nothing specific, nothing that said something as simple as “walk north at sunset and you’ll find the crossover point.” Still, it looked as though the treachery of others could help conceal my escape if I timed things. And I did know this, no matter how badly I was lost, I would never find my way out until I started to search. Was Tarvik my responsibility? Because he had spared my life and protected me, did I owe him the same? All stupid questions, the sort of things my astrologer friends and I used to argue around a pitcher of beer and a pizza in the evenings, with the answers ignored. No matter who owed what to whom, or where the moral obligations lay, I could not ignore the threats of a horoscope. I had told Kovat I would warn his son, and even though Tarvik drove me nuts at times, I had to keep my word. “You frown, Stargazer,” Nance said as she hurried by the table on which I sketched the signatures. She touched her fingertip to the spot between my eyes. “Stop or your brow will age early.” Would Nance be caught in what I saw? I had no horoscope for her and couldn’t make one, because she did not know the day of her birth. “Where are your parents? Can you send to them for your birth date?” I asked. Nance stopped with the corner of the cloth she was folding still tucked under her chin. “My parents? I never knew them. They both died of fever a few months after I was born, as did Tarvik’s mother.” “I did not know that and I am sorry,” I said. “Probably my uncle would know the date. I could ask when he returns, if it is important,” she said.

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By then the information would be of no use, I thought, and tried to concentrate on the horoscopes of Erlan’s family. No matter what happened beyond the gates, the temple itself, with its own guards and its hold on the minds of the people, would remain sanctuary for Nance. I believed that. I could almost overrule my heart with such assurances. But I could not find any hint of protection for Tarvik, not in his own stars and certainly not in the stars of his relatives. One of those wretched flash visions hit me, blanked out my surroundings, filled my mind like a nightmare. In it, Kovat was sitting on a bench and was fallen forward, lying across a table, his shoulders hunched up, his scarred face turned to the side, cheek resting on a dish, something wet and greasy dripping from the edge of the tilted dish and soaking slowly into the fur collar of his cape. His jeweled hands hung to his sides. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that he wasn’t breathing. I stared at Ober’s chart, trying to remember if I had ever seen such evil in a horoscope and was relieved the vision was gone. None of it was anything I wanted to explain. But I was bound by my word to warn Tarvik. Of what? That I saw his father passed out in a vision? Maybe that’s all it was, way too much wine for Kovat. Or too much imagination for me. I was pissed at Kovat. Maybe my vision was a bit of wishful thinking. Closing my eyes, the better to think, I leaned against my hand, putting my palm down in the center of Ober’s chart. Big mistake. Visions are one thing, touching a horoscope is something else. No little flash on a scene, rather, I was sometimes pulled into touch and sound and smell. No silent battle this time. I saw the bottom of the world, a pit deeper than any coal mine, and felt sleet hit my face. The air was filled with swirling black grit and no light penetrated, only moving clouds of blackness. The stench was of death. I very nearly choked on it. My eyes popped open. I jerked my hand away from the chart. With my eyes open, once again I slowly pressed my hand over the sun in her chart. And with my eyes open, I could feel a rapid heartbeat. My palm ached with cold. No matter what one’s work is, or how many others do the same job, each of us brings to our job our individual skills. This was mine, this damn physical reaction to touching the sun in a horoscope, and I really hated it.

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“No good can come from arguing with myself,” I muttered to myself. “Tarvik is a spoiled brat, but he has been my protector. And I don’t dislike him anything like the extent of Ober’s horoscope.” “What is it you say?” Nance asked. “I have to speak with Tarvik,” I said, looking up at her. “How do I arrange that? Can I send a message to him to come here?” “Now? This morning? Please not now!” Nance wailed. “Why ever not?” “Why do you think I rush around so? If I can right the temple by noon, we can slip away at dusk and not return until sunup of the day past tomorrow.” “No, we can’t.” “Stargazer! We have been locked in this boring place for ages! Wouldn’t you like to ride away and cook our supper in the forest and enjoy the morrow on the plateau with nothing to do but lie in the sun and fly with the wings?” “You fly, toots. I will do the sun-lying,” I said. “Yes, that would be fun, Nance, but we can’t, not now. There are problems shaping up that would catch us out.” I could not think how to explain to her the rotting soul I had felt in Ober’s chart. I would never again lay my palm on a chart, never, not ever. “Why now?” She stamped her foot at me. “If you must see such warnings in your silly circles, stop looking at them.” Trying to close my mind to that death pit in Ober’s heart, I kept my voice steady. Tarvik must be warned. “Consider, Nance. With Ober and her daughter here, extra guards will be everywhere. Not only ours. We are also surrounded by Ober and Alakar’s guards. Somebody is sure to see us.” “I suppose,” she sighed. “If you must see Tarvik, send a message with a guard.” “Could we send a message with Lor? Could that be done? It might be better if others didn’t know about our meeting.” Nance clapped her hands and laughed. “I like that! Secret meetings with Tarvik! He will be pleased.” “Why should Tarvik be pleased?” “Sometimes you are truly stupid, Stargazer. But do not heed me. Find out in your own time.”

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I knew where her mind was wandering and I wasn’t going to waste time explaining to her that her cousin was a typical male, all ego. He flirted with every female in sight because he thought that was his main job in life. “Can we send a message by Lor?” I persisted. Of course we could. Whatever Nance asked of the stable keeper, he did, despite his grumbled protests. I told him to ask the prince to come to the temple any time that day. I had thought Tarvik would come to the courtyard as he often did, but I misjudged. Instead he sent Lor back to us with instructions for Lor to bring me alone to the castle after dark, and in secret. “I don’t care much for that idea,” I told Nance. “Are you afraid to meet alone with Tarvik?” she teased. “Think, Nance. If Tarvik tells me to come to the castle in secret, then he must suspect we have a private way to leave the temple.” “What? No! No one knows of the doorway to the stable but you and me and Lor,” she cried. “Then why would he ask me to do that?” “Perhaps he suspects,” she said slowly, her expression begging me to agree. “But he cannot know.” “He will, if I follow his instructions.” I wanted to believe she was right, that he had nothing more than a suspicion. Tarvik’s knowledge of the sliding stone to the stable could foul up future escape plans. And so to avoid exposing that secret, I informed our guards I was to be escorted to the castle, accompanied by old Lor. They nodded and smiled, relaxed again now that Kovat had left the city. It was as though everyone once again felt free to breathe. The only household member who never changed was Kovat’s large patchy dog. His muzzle was turning white. He gave me the briefest of glances from where he lay against a closed door, then settled back to sleep. When we entered the castle, Tarvik opened his chamber door, saw the temple guards, and looked surprised. “You will leave and return to your posts,” he told the guards. “Lor will wait outside my door to return the templekeeper when I command it.” I stepped into his room and saw Artur, the guard with the streaked hair, standing against the far wall. He was slightly taller than Tarvik, and, I guessed, several years older. His eyes were a grayer blue, his skin a shade

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darker, his cheekbones and arched nose sharper. Nance was right. He was a looker. Tarvik turned, following where I looked. “You, too, Artur,” he said. “Wait outside for me.” Artur nodded and followed the other guards from the room. After closing the door behind them, Tarvik said, “I thought you wanted to see me privately, Stargazer. Why did you bring guards?” Pushing the hood of my cloak back from my face so I could see him better, I said, “I can’t leave the temple gates without the guards.” “Why did you leave by the gates?” he demanded. “Is there some other way?” He frowned, drawing his eyebrows together, and bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, such a fidgety guy, always moving. Had Kovat once looked like that, young, unscarred and handsome? While I thought about that, I glanced around his room. Rugs woven in bright patterns covered the walls. I couldn’t see any openings in the walls, but I thought there might be some because one of the hanging cloths moved slightly, as though stirred by an air current. The floor was piled deeply with sheepskins and more of the bright wool rugs. On the side wall several of the stones had been painted blue and against that background there were small drawings of a deer, a bear, a rabbit, a squirrel. A larger stone contained a picture of a white horse. “Is that Banner?” I asked, walking over to the wall. He nodded. “That’s very pretty.” I ran my finger lightly over it and could feel the roughness of the stone under the paint. He reached toward me, unfastened my cloak and slid it from my shoulders so quickly, I had no time to protest. “I am not planning to stay.” “Then why are you here?” “At your father’s request.” He looked startled at my mention of Kovat. “He spoke with you privately?” “He came to see me at the temple this morning before he left.” “Why should he seek you out alone at the temple?” “Because he is free to move about his city and I am not,” I said, a bit too carefully, as though talking to a child. Might as well get this straightened out

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right now, wipe out any notion he had about secret doors in the temple. “While my journeying to the castle surrounded by guards draws considerable attention, his brief visit alone to the temple did not. The same holds true for you, my lad. You could have come to me when I asked to see you.” His lower lip jutted out in that childlike way that made me want to smile. “I rule the city in his absence. It is proper for me to send for you and not the other way.” Not proper to come to visit me? Hmm, then what were all those evening appearances when he banged on the gate. I almost asked him if I should turn him away the next time he came to share a story or a dance, but decided not. His rapid changes of moods were puzzling and worth avoiding. No surprise that Kovat feared for the safety of his only son. The difference between the two of them was that while both were courageous and arrogant, Kovat did not allow his emotions to blind his reason. “What was it that Kovat the Slayer wanted of a templekeeper?” Tarvik demanded. “He wants me to chart the stars and to warn you if I find anything wrong, uh, dangerous, evil, like that.” That caught his attention. He leaned close to me, his face almost touching mine, and asked, “What did you find?” Something warned me, maybe some odd sound or maybe that sixth sense thing, but I reached out and pressed my fingertips against Tarvik’s mouth to silence him and nodded toward the door. For all the door’s thickness, its rough grain was no barrier to sound. From the corridor we heard a woman ask, “Is the templekeeper still in my lord Tarvik’s chamber?” We heard Lor’s mumbled admission. “Is it his cousin or the other one?” the woman asked. “The other.” “You will return to your stable. My guards will escort her back to the temple.” In the silence I could imagine Lor’s strong, wrinkled hands clenching. He would not want to leave me. But he could not argue. Then I heard his slow shuffle down the corridor, his sandals slapping loudly on the hard floor and I knew he meant for me to hear him and figure out what to do.

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“Which voice is that?” I whispered. “Ober,” Tarvik said. “She can send Lor away, but Artur will remain at my door.” I beckoned him to the far corner away from the door, and said, “That’s what I need to warn you about. She plots against you.” “How can Ober be of danger to me? And why should she?” “I have no answer to that, Tarvik, but your father asked me to warn you and now I have.” “Why should I believe you?” “No reason at all.” “If you think Ober is dangerous, you have put yourself in danger by coming here to warn me.” A thought wrinkled his forehead and deepened his scowl because his thoughts always showed all over him. I didn’t bother to look to see if his fists were clenched. I kept my mouth shut and waited for him to make his own decision. Finally he said, “Stargazer, do you warn me out of loyalty to Kovat?” “No. I owe him nothing.” “Then you came because you fear for me.” “Fair’s fair. You’ve tried to protect me. And I think if you want me to stay alive, you better send your own guards to escort me back to the temple. I don’t trust Ober’s guards.” He hesitated, glanced at the door, then caught my hand and led me behind one of the heavy wall rugs. Musty darkness made me sneeze, probably the musty more than the dark. Tarvik’s grip tightened. I bumped against the wall, then moved through an archway concealed by the rug. “Secret passages? Wow.” “Between the walls,” he whispered. “Here, this place is always cold.” In the darkness he reached around my shoulders to wrap me in my cloak that he still held. His fingers touched my throat and his hands fumbled with the clasp. I couldn’t see a thing in the dark but I could feel his touch, hear his breathing. And it was back to hand-holding, sword-carrying barbarian time. Was he carrying a sword? I hadn’t noticed and I didn’t suppose it was a normal piece of indoor apparel. It would have been clumsy around the house. But the hand-holding thing continued, his warm strong fingers wrapped around

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mine. In a strange, cold, dark, spooky secret passage, it was kind of nice to be able to feel his body heat and hear his footsteps and hang on to his hand. Although I had no reason to memorize my path, I did, placing the pattern firmly in my mind while we stumbled up and down occasional steps. At one turning I heard a woman’s voice, her tone too low for me to understand her words. The passage had no lights, no windows, and I couldn’t see a thing. I held my breath and reached out my free hand hoping Tarvik, who stalked rapidly in front of me dragging me by my other hand, would not feel my body turn. My fingers brushed the backing of a rug. So the passage opened to other rooms. We ended at a blank wall that appeared to be a single stone set firmly in place. I could see Tarvik now, a shadow shape in the darkness. Either my eyes were adjusting to the darkness or light entered this inner passage at this point. I couldn’t locate the source. Tarvik reached up and touched a spot on the wall just above his head height. A secret door opened into the night air. He pulled me outside and turned me so that I saw the outline of the hill and the distant temple in the starlight. “I will take you back myself,” he said. There was a reason why I didn’t want him to do that. “Tarvik, I think you should return to your chamber and perhaps move around and talk loudly so Ober hears you.” “I cannot let you wander the hill alone.” “Lor is waiting nearby.” “Why not let me walk with you?” I think he did not completely believe he was in danger. I said, “If Ober guesses we are gone, she will search your room until she finds the passage.” “She would not dare enter my room!” “Can you be certain of that? She came to the temple today to ask me why your father stopped to speak with me this morning.” “How did she know about that when I did not?” he asked. “Right. Be careful, Tarvik. Wait. There, I see Lor in the shadow of those trees. Go back. It will be safer for us both.” “Is he there? Yes. Then I suppose — Stargazer, if you seek me again, come this way. Here, let me show you. Press upon the outer wall to open the

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door. Do you feel it?” He caught my hand and guided it up the wall, then spread my fingers against the latchstone. “Yes.” “Stargazer?” “What?” To my surprise, or perhaps not, he tightened his hand around mine, circled me with his other arm, pressed his face against my ear and whispered, “I have trusted you. I have shown you the secret entrance to the castle, known to none but me. My father knows nothing of this passageway and I have never shown it to Artur. If I trust you, will you trust me?” For a moment I could barely breathe, unsure what he would do if I pushed him away. Standing very still, held captive, feeling the heat of his cheek against mine, I managed to mumble, “I constantly trust you with my life. Now hurry, before Ober sends out a search party for you.” He hesitated, his hand still clinging to mine, then let go, stepped away from me and went back inside the passage. The door closed behind him. I knew Lor could hear us enough to know we were near, but couldn’t see me in the shadow of the wall. I didn’t need to explain to him what I planned to do. He would wait all night for me. He’d suspect, as I did, that Ober’s guards had instructions to do something other with me than return me to the temple. To wait in darkness with Lor nearby didn’t take any courage. The old man would protect me with his life for Nance’s sake. To turn and touch the latchstone was another matter. I did not like dark, narrow, enclosed places. But I did it, turned, ran my fingers lightly across the outer wall until I found that small chipped spot on the stones. I knew I had to return to the place where I’d heard the woman speaking. Biting my lower lip for courage, I went inside and closed the door behind me, entombing myself. I thought I knew where the inner release must be, but I wasn’t sure, and if I searched for it now and did not find it, I was going to give in to noisy hysterics. My heart was already pounding so loudly it seemed to me the whole castle would hear it. I waited for my eyes to accustom to the dark. I could see almost nothing, a few gray shadows in the black. Feeling my way along the wall and counting turns, my shaking fingertips scraped stone until I touched rug backing. No sound.

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Tracing the wall opening with my hands, I found it to be barely large enough to squeeze a person through, a large stone missing, nothing more. I felt my way along the passage until I found the square piece of stone, bumped my toes on it, bent down in the dark and measured its size with my hands. Who had removed it and left it here against the wall? Ober? No. If she knew about the passageway she wouldn’t bother to wait outside Tarvik’s door. She would have stood behind Tarvik’s room and eavesdropped. Tarvik? If so, then he must already suspect whoever occupied this room and that didn’t seem likely. Perhaps the stone had been removed long ago by someone else. If so, the answer lay with Tarvik. Who had first told him about the passage? I could imagine he had accidently found the doorway to his own room, but had he also discovered the latchstones at the end of the corridor? That was harder to believe. Over the years he had spent a lot of alone time in the castle. But not really alone, not without a guard. And he said Artur didn’t know about the passage. “Is she still in his chamber?” The voice was so near to me it startled me out of my thoughts. “We will be told when she leaves,” I heard Ober say, and knew the other voice must belong to her daughter, Alakar. What did I hope to gain, standing in the space between the walls? With so many missing planets in their horoscopes, I hoped I could fill in information from elsewhere. If ever a place was elsewhere, this was it, a dark passageway with a concealed opening into their room. “Why did he send for her?” Alakar asked. “I will learn that when I have her in my power,” Ober said. Alakar said, “Does she matter to us? She is nothing, merely a templekeeper, and so dark and tall and her bones stick out. Can we not have her killed now?”

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Chapter 11 I bit my tongue and continued to listen. Never had liked the looks of that girl, way too smarmy. “She may seem nothing to you,” Ober said, “but I have watched your Tarvik. He looks at her with great longing which is more than he has ever done with you.” “You’re mad! Want her when he is promised to me? Why should he?” “Why indeed? She requested this audience with him. He did not send for her. What does she plot?” Ober said, and sounded more as though she was thinking aloud than talking to her daughter. Was there nothing that escaped those colorless eyes? “Does Kovat long for her, too?” Alakar asked. Ober’s low laugh was not pleasant. “Not that way, you stupid girl. Something else. I remember his obsession with the Daughter because of her magic. I wonder. Could this one also possess magic?” “She cannot be powerful or Kovat would have taken her with him to defeat the warlords of Thunder.” To hear their words was suspense enough, but it was as nothing compared to standing in my dark hiding place after their voices died away. What were they doing? Had they turned to stare at the hanging rug that separated us? Did some movement of the air in the cold passageway stir the hanging? Or had they gone to their warm beds while I stood freezing in this damn place? Or was Ober quietly opening the door to her room and instructing her guards to go outside the castle to grab me when I stepped out of the secret door? I waited for what seemed to me half the night, shivering in the folds of my cloak. When I could bear the silence no longer, I touched the backing of the rug. As it moved slightly, a dim edge of light framed it.

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An oil lamp burned in their room. Leaning my head through the wall opening so my ear pressed against the rug, I listened. Somebody was moving around. There. A footstep. A scrape. Was that a bowl or mug scraping on a tabletop? How bright was the room? Should I push the rug aside or would they see it move? If I hadn’t been so positive the lives of Tarvik, myself, and maybe Nance, too, depended on my knowledge of Ober’s plans, I would have felt my way out of the passage and run all the way back to the temple. Instead, I moved the carpet aside the width of a pinch at a time, the wool backing catching on my fingertips, pausing after each move to listen for the sound of an indrawn breath. While I waited, I almost wished someone would scream. Then I could let go and take off out of there and forget the whole dumb idea of playing spy. Nobody screamed. My last move brought the edge of the rug a finger width past the edge of the opening and I blinked at the light. Set for flight, I peered through. In the lamp glow at the table the two women bent over an assortment of crockery, their attention fixed on what they did. The wall that separated us was in deep shadow. Ober dropped a pinch of powder into a bowl. After carefully opening a small container, she let some liquid drip on the powder. It flared. The room filled with yellow smoke that looked like the smoke created by the magician of Thunder. That trick hadn’t impressed Kovat or Tarvik. How did she intend to use it? With a fingertip she drew a triangle on the tabletop. If she touched it with anything other than her finger, I couldn’t see what she used. A red glowing line followed her touch. In the center of the triangle she placed a bowl filled with some sort of dark powder. Making odd hand motions above it, she mumbled a chant. Then she took a part of the powder and measured it into a shiny object she held in her palm. When she stepped back from the table and reached toward Alakar, I saw what the object was. Ober had put the powder into a small ornamental locket that hung on a chain. Slipping the chain over her daughter’s head, she arranged it carefully around her neck. The little locket hung like a jewel, shining against the dark fabric of Alakar’s robe. “It is done,” Ober said.

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“Are you sure it will work?” Alakar asked. “I know my part well enough if you remember yours.” “I wish we were rid of them both now,” Alakar said. “What use would that be? Until we receive word of Kovat’s death, we cannot proceed. Time enough then to wed and rule, my girl.” I strained so hard to catch their words it was a miracle they didn’t feel my presence and hear my heart banging away, my breath catch in my throat. They also didn’t continue their discussion. Instead, the conversation turned to the usual, empty chatter about jewels and robes. I waited, shivering and silent, until they blew out the lamp, before I let the rug slide back into place. Receive word of Kovat’s death? Oh, damn. After the dim light of the room, the passageway was thick blackness. I felt my way along the wall until I reached its end. A pressure on the spot above the door where Tarvik had touched the rock accomplished nothing. I touched it again, to the side, then above, then below. Had he tricked me? Had he raised his hand to mislead me, then touched some other stone, the stage magician thing of watch my right hand so you won’t see what my left hand is doing? I had barely been able to see what he did. But why would he try to mislead me? Had he guessed I would return this night? Was I an idiot to believe anything he told me? Was he waiting now in his room to hand me over to Ober’s guards? Frantic, I felt around the rock’s edge, searching for the latchstone. I could stay here until daytime when Ober and Alakar left their room and then, if I hadn’t frozen to death, I could climb through their wall opening. But what would that gain me? Guards must constantly patrol the corridor beyond their door. Or I could return to Tarvik and tell him what I had overheard. And how would I explain why I’d decided to spy on his aunt and cousin? He said he trusted me, which could be useful, and, wow, would my turning up now put paid to that idea. My fingers touched a smaller stone, set slightly deeper in the wall, and almost at the point I had thought Tarvik touched. I pressed it. The door opened. So he had not tricked me and my suspicions were unfair. Not much consolation there. It meant Tarvik really did trust me more than I trusted

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him, which put me in the unpleasant position of knowing I did have an obligation to protect him. Hate being obligated, because in my experience, being in some guy’s debt is never a good thing.

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Chapter 12 Have I mentioned that a thousand years ago, when I was sixteen, I dated Rock Decko? No, I did not know that he had an older brother out in the big bad world, over in Spokane, actually, working for some law firm, and I wouldn’t have cared. Rock in black leather and chains was, uh, hot. And I was sixteen. Which I hope explains why I thought he was hot. He wasn’t much older than me, two or three years, I think, and by then I was well into my training as an astrologer, which had begun about two years before. I had been handpicked by the resident astrology teacher, but that’s another long story. To cut to the chase, Rock was into motorcyles, worked in a cycle repair shop, and really, really, really wanted to be a bad boy but had no special skills. I am talking fighting skills. He couldn’t possibly have held his own in a Hell’s Angels-type of dust up. So he hung around the edges when bikers came into the shop, soaking up their wild stories and believing them, then putting himself into the lead role. I can still hear him telling me, “Babe, this dude came at me, had a knife this long, thought I’d back off, blah, blah, blah.” He had me fooled for about a month. I was really impressed in that teenage nuts kind of way. “Weren’t you scared?” “Nah, babe, nothing scares me.” Did I mention he was a really good kisser? Sixteen is easy to impress. Fortunately, he didn’t own a car and neither of us had a room to go to or money to rent one and hadn’t figured a path around that little obstacle. Also, fortunately, Rock hadn’t yet been tapped to be a wizard. Most smash wizards don’t know they are wizards. It isn’t genetic, at least not where I come from. It’s more accidental, like discovering you’re a natural on the

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oboe. And that happens when a music teacher hands you one and says, “I think you might be good on this.” With wizard mentality, the line is, “Do you sometimes wish for something and are surprised when it happens?” Rock and I were a twoesome before his big moment. While necking in the back booth of the pizza parlor, because necking on a bike is really hazardous and I have a few scars to prove it, I’d come up for air and tell him about my astrology training. “You can tell fortunes? Hey, can you pick winners, you know, like for a Seahawks game?” Verboten, every astrologer knows that, not because it is illegal but because one teeny error can earn you a lifelong enemy, so I told him of course not. That isn’t why we broke up. Another guy tried to hit on me, nothing obnoxious, the sort of thing I could have turned off with a polite, “That’s my boyfriend over there.” Rock didn’t give me a chance. The guy touched my arm, just touched, didn’t grab, and asked my name and could he buy me a beer. I was on my way back to the booth from a rest room run. I didn’t even get a chance to tell him I stuck to diet coke because even in Mudflat they card. The bad boy wannabe saw us and flew out of the booth swinging a chain and then there was this damn messy bloody mix-up, with the owner tossing us all out into the parking lot. I left and caught a bus home. Buses stayed clear of Mudflat at night, so from the nearest bus stop I still had to walk a couple of miles. Lots of time to think. So I wasn’t a brain. At least I knew a violent boyfriend could be a girl’s worst nightmare. I told him so the next time he phoned. Funny thing, that. He didn’t argue, didn’t say he was sorry. I heard later that some other girl helped scrape him up off the parking lot pavement where Mr. Pick-Up turned out to be the tougher of the two. And so I put Rock Decko out of my mind. Sure, when my cousin Jimmy introduced me to Darryl Decko, six years later, I asked if he was related to somebody named Rock and he said, “My half-ass brother? Sorry you’ve met him, honey. I don’t have anything to do with him and he’s not crazy about me, either.” And I was dumb enough to believe him.

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So after the Decko boys, and a list of guys in between, is it such a surprise that I avoid letting myself be indebted to good looking young men? The troll is a different story. And speaking of the troll, old Lor was about as attractive and therefore, yes, I trusted Lor. Peeking out around the edge of the doorway, I saw it was still nightblack outside and no one guarded the long wall on this side of the castle. I closed the stone door and moved in the building shadow toward the trees. A shadow separated from the others. My breath stopped. Old Lor whispered, “This way.” I hurried to him and whispered back, “We heard Ober send you away.” “Aye, but I waited.” We circled around the back of the temple, past the stables and up the other side, watching from the far wall until we saw that no one stood near the gate except two temple guards. Yeah, tonight there were two of them. Had the guards decided that themselves? I didn’t know what their rotation was so maybe this was routine, something they did when there were others around. Maybe they didn’t like Ober and company any more than I did. When they opened the gate for me, their torches lighting my way, I glanced back and saw the silhouette of Ober’s manservant across the hill, a tall form of hood and narrow cloak. I hadn’t had time to do his horoscope and I didn’t much want to because I had seen the evil washing through Ober’s heart and that was enough. Lor was right to lead me to the gate. Now no one would suspect secret entrances. They might wonder how I had left Tarvik’s room and slipped past them, but this was not their castle. I doubted they knew every doorway. They would figure there must be a door from his room to an adjoining room, with that room opening to a different corridor. Or they would believe I was magic. That’s the most useful thing about superstitious people. They are easy to fool. Oh right, a policeman once said something like that to me about fortune telling. Nance waited for me, wringing the hem of her tunic in her hands and blinking back tears. She sputtered complaints about the lateness of my return, sounding worse than my Gran when I came home from a date, then touched me and sobbed that I was chilled through and would probably come down with fever. After wrapping a blanket over my cloak and pushing me

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down among a pile of sheepskins, she pressed a cup of hot tea into my hands and insisted it would warm me. I sipped at it, wishing it was coffee, brandy, even their bitter mead, almost anything other than tea. When she settled down, I told her what had happened. “It sounds to me as though Tarvik suspects we also have a secret door, probably because he does,” Nance exclaimed. “Be careful, Stargazer. If he ever discovers our way through the stables, we will become prisoners in this temple.” “He trusted me with his secret. Isn’t that worth something?” I asked. “Who can be sure of Tarvik? He is safe enough now but someday he will rule and marry Alakar. That will change everything. Those who rule do not remember their friends. Think of Kovat. He prayed with the priests of Thunder until the Daughter of the Sun cured him. Then he was quick enough to turn against them. Those who did not escape fell beneath his sword or died in prison cells.” “Tell me about this Daughter and her consort,” I said. “Do you remember them?” “I remember them, but it was long ago. I was a child when they died. They were both kind to me.” “Nance, do you know how she cured illness? How did she cure Kovat?” “I only know what I have been told. Fifteen years ago the Daughter and her consort arrived here from the afterworld, from the home of the gods. I was an infant. Tarvik was four. His mother had already died, as had my mother and father. Kovat lay on his deathbed. “When the Daughter saw him, she…oh, it is so long since I have heard this tale, let me think. Yes, she lay her hands upon him and prepared a drink for him and the fever left him. He knew then that she possessed great magic.” About what I’d guessed. She gave him a swallow of tea or mead or whatever, probably used to wash down a dose of antibiotic. Nance added, “No one can do that but a god. Now tell me what Ober said. And what she did.” I told her what Ober said. Neither of us was sure what she meant. As for what Ober did, I knew of only one person who could explain that. “Nance, is there some way we can speak with the magician of Thunder?”

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“Speak with him? Are you mad?” “I must speak with him. I am guessing he is the only person who will know what sorts of tricks Ober uses. Knockout drops? Poison? I don’t know much about drugs, but some are made from wild plants. We need to tell him what I saw Ober mixing and find out what it is. Can he be brought here?” Nance did her drama queen thing, flung herself back against her pile of sheepskins and tossed her head from side to side, exclaiming, “Life was so easy for me before you came, Stargazer. Tarvik did not suspect me. Ober’s guards did not watch me. I went where I chose when I chose. And no one ever asked me to invite a magician to the temple. Stargazer! His eyes hold terrible magic!” “Okay. Don’t give it another thought,” I said, giving her my widest smile. “If it is you and me that Ober wants to be rid of, and those were her words, I will patiently await my fate.” Nance jumped to her feet. Her small fists beat the air. “You are terrible! Wicked! I cannot think why I listen to you! Oh, have your way. But if the magician’s eyes turn my heart and mind forever against you, it will be what you deserve.” “Don’t look at his eyes,” I said. “Let me talk to him alone.” “And who will keep him from killing you?” “Why should he kill me? What would it gain him? No, we’ll give him something he wants. Besides freedom, what would he want, Nance? Something I can hand him?” “Food and, oh, I cannot believe I am planning this with you! It is madness! I cannot allow it!” While Nance moaned and sobbed and shouted her opinions of me, I went outside and heated water over the courtyard fire, carried it inside, washed away the day’s dust and paint, and then dried myself with a linen altar cloth. By the time I pulled on a clean tunic and rubbed most of the water from my hair, Nance was almost calm. Not screaming anyway. She no longer shouted. She merely glared at me. “You win,” she said. “I can think of only one way to do this and when Kovat returns he’ll punish us all. I will send word to Tarvik to order the magician brought to us.” “Will Tarvik do that?”

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“I will not ask him as his cousin. I shall command him as temple priest. I shall say the magician holds knowledge you must have to complete the task Kovat set for you.” “Clever you. But let me make one change.” Nance clapped her hands over her ears and cried, “I do not want to hear it!” I said it, anyway. In the back of my addled brain an idea grew. I needed to know more than what the magician might say in the presence of Nance and Tarvik. “Nance, I don’t want the magician brought here. Instead, tell Tarvik to have his guards escort me alone to the magician’s cell.” Her howls of protest should have kept me awake, but it had been a tiresome night and I tuned her out. Her howls were nothing compared to Tarvik’s anger. The next day we spent an unpleasant afternoon stuck in the stale-smelling temple with Tarvik. Nance had made me don temple robes, again, so I felt about as grouchy as he acted. He could hardly believe my request much less consider granting it. “You want to see who? Have you gone mad?” he said. There were a whole lot of hard truths I was tempted to shout at him. But Nance was right. If I was going to get my way, I had to let her win through intimidation. For someone who didn’t know that phrase, she had the behavior down pat. Trouble was, for all I knew the guy loved Alakar, or lusted for her. Hey, he was nineteen and the girl was gorgeous. That bit about not wanting her was Ober’s thought, not mine. He tended to treat me like a pet, picking me up to toss me on his horse, tucking in my hair so it would not be noticed, fastening my cloak when I looked cold. Oh yes, he liked to hug me, and probably any other available female, and might have progressed to grabby if I let him, but it was nothing more than flirting. I knew that. I was entertainment, amusing him with my reactions to his teasing. “I speak for the Daughter of the Sun,” Nance chanted for the third time. Tarvik glared. He had left his guards in the courtyard, as requested, and entered dressed in his temple garb of fur-trimmed cape and gold armbands. In his outthrust hands lay his offering, a gold trinket cradled in a soft new temple cloth. Today the cloth was another one of the linen ones I loved. I

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didn’t have much use for jewelry in the middle of the Olympic Mountains, but clean towels? Definitely included on my want list. The silk ones served Nance’s hobby nicely but were useless when it came to drying my hair. Nance ignored his offering. “The Daughter rejects all gifts from those who refuse her small requests,” Nance said. “How can I know this is truly the Daughter’s request?” Tarvik demanded. “The Daughter sent me a vision of the magician speaking with the templekeeper,” Nance chanted. “Do you question my visions, son of Kovat, faithful servant of the Daughter?” Tarvik thrust out his lower lip. We waited. At last he said, “What if the magician harms the templekeeper or — or anyone? My father’s anger will be toward me.” Nance repeated the answer I had given her. “If he could do harm, he would have escaped by now. The Daughter knows the courage of brave Tarvik exceeds the powers of the magician.” Of course we won. We knew we would. Had we argued with Tarvik in the courtyard, dressed in tunics, our faces unpainted, he might have held out against a cousin and a stranger. But here in the musty shadows of the hanging lamps, overseen by the portraits of his father’s gods and faced by two fully costumed priests of the Daughter, he could drag his feet a bit, but had to give in to Nance’s demands. Wish I could have had such power over the magician. With a pouch of food hidden under my cape, I followed an escort guard back to the castle, then through a creaking metal gate, then down a winding stone staircase into the damp smell of basement. Backed into his cell, the magician faced me with the defiant hatred of a captive who knows where to place the blame. As the guard closed the door behind me, I began to doubt my judgment. Why had I thought I could gain information from this man? I had outdone him in front of a powerful warlord, taken his one chance at freedom. His gaze followed mine around the cell. “Not pretty, is it?” he said. “Soon Kovat will tire of you, too, and you will find yourself entombed in a like place.”

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Mold sketched odd patterns on the stone walls. Light filtered through a grate far overhead. The cell, a man’s height in width and depth, was beneath a courtyard of the castle, reached by twisting narrow stairs and foul-smelling corridors. The magician had no comforts of sheepskins or bench, only the earth floor, cold and hard beneath his body at night. Remembering the bribe, I drew the pouch of food from the folds of my cape and held it out to him. He accepted it, his bony fingers curling like talons around it. I waited while he ate the cheese. The bread he concealed beneath his tunic before handing back Nance’s pouch. “I accept your gift but I owe you nothing in return,” he said. “Whatever you give me, you give to protect yourself,” I said. “Why is that?” “Your life depends on Kovat’s whim. I can probably gain a favor or two from him. Once in command, the lady Ober will have no use for me. Then you’ll lose me as your one chance out of here.” “Why should you help me? It was you who destroyed me.” “No. No, I didn’t. You destroyed yourself. You didn’t have good answers for Kovat’s questions.” My words were brave enough but I still wasn’t going to look in his eyes. Hypnotism is funny stuff, nothing I have ever understood or been willing to try. It can be shot through with bad magic. “What is it you want?” “I saw something I hope you can explain to me.” “Why should I do that?” “Because I don’t know what is planned. Maybe the overthrow of Kovat’s son, maybe the destruction of all of us.” He squatted in a corner and turned his face to the wall. Hunched up, his thin hands and feet protruding from his tunic, he looked old and sick and defeated. “This matters not to me. One ruler will entomb me, another will behead me. Where is the difference? A quick death might be easier.” “Is there nothing I can offer you?” “A way out,” he whispered against the stones. “I’ll do what I can when Kovat returns but there’s no way to help you escape,” I said. He glanced up. I turned my eyes away. “Would you help me if you could?”

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“In return for the right information, why not? Your captivity is of no use to me.” And that was true. He was a weak, weary old man, separated from friends and home. If let go, he would disappear into the mountains. He’d want freedom far more than revenge. “I could tell you how to free me,” he said. True, I did not fear this sickly magician, but what about Kovat when he returned? If he discovered I had helped the magician escape, and Kovat had an unpleasant ability to know exactly whom to suspect of what, what would happen to me? While I worried that through, I nodded. “Go ahead, tell me.” “I could tell you the contents of drugs to add to the drinks of the guards that would make them sleep through any sound. You could steal past them and release me.” “And when they woke up, they could hack me to death,” I said. “Make your own choice. Whatever you want of me must be paid for with my freedom.” The guard rapped his sword hilt against the outer surface of the cell door. I called to him to wait a moment longer. Then I told the old man what I had heard and seen in Ober’s chamber. “I know her magic,” he said. “I know those signs and powders she uses. When I am out of this place I will tell you what it means.” “Tell me quickly,” I said, “and I will try to get you out.” “Later will be beyond caring, dark woman. I am weary to the brink of death and you have not much longer. Now I will tell you how to mix the drug to overcome the guards. Make your choice when you wish. But if you hope to save yourself, you had better choose soon. What Ober mixes can be fatal. She learned from a deathwalker.” He had barely time to tell me the leaves I must grind and simmer and add to a drink for the guards. First, grinding coffee beans is the limit of my culinary skills. Second, his mixture might be deadly. I think we both knew I wasn’t going to do it. The guard knocked again, opened the door, and said it was time to leave. I had no more than returned to the temple courtyard when Nance attacked me with questions. “What did he do? How did he speak? What are

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the cells like? Did he cast a spell on you? Did he tell you what you need to know? Will he help us?” I described the prison cell with its shaft of light entering through the ceiling grill. She clapped her hands and exclaimed, “Yes, I know where that is! The grill opens to a small courtyard so the guards can check on the prisoner from above. Did he tell you what you sought?” “Not that one,” I said and told her his bargain. Nance shrieked, clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at me, her eyes wide above her crossed fingers. “He said Tarvik’s life lay in Ober’s hands.” “Do you believe him? Is he lying to gain his freedom? If you help him, you will destroy yourself, Stargazer. Promise me you will try no such madness.” I nodded. I’m not suicidal. For now we were safe enough. And who could know what might occur. Maybe my suspicions were wrong. Better yet, maybe bad weather would change Kovat’s plans and he would return before Ober attempted whatever she was up to. “Nance, what is a deathwalker?” I asked and waited patiently for her to go through her usual series of screams and threats after which I added, “The magician warned me against the deathwalker.” “The magician? The magician said that? Oh Stargazer!” “So tell me, what exactly is a deathwalker?” “I don’t really know,” she admitted, “I only know the tales Lor tells. Some say that man can kill you with a touch. Some say he is already dead. Some say his soul is gone, that he traded it to an evil god.” None of her explanations matched anything I knew about. The magician of Thunder was little more than an old man with a few stage tricks. So probably the deathwalker was also overrated, a man who once murdered someone under odd circumstances, creating rumors about himself. While Nance fussed around me, I drew a circle on a tabletop. As I did not know an hour, all I could use was the day Kovat had told me. That meant placing the sun on the morning horizon and hoping it gave me some message from that spot. I knew from memory the placement of the slower planets for the hooded man’s chart, and so I drew them. After what I had felt in Ober’s chart, I didn’t want to do his horoscope and certainly I didn’t want to touch it.

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“What do you see in your magic circle?” Nance said, leaning against the table. “Nothing much, little more than I saw in the charts of Erlan and Kovat, but then, this one not only lacks the moon and near planets, it lacks the placement of time.” “You sound like my chants,” Nance said, “your meaning is clouded.” “It is,” I sighed. “I hoped for some clear message but there isn’t one.” Turning to look at her, I dropped my hand to the table for support. “When can we get out of these robes?” A shock of cold ran through my hand. I stumbled back. “Stargazer? You look pale. Are you faint?” I stared at the circle. The sun. His heart. I had touched it. “Nothing but cold,” I whispered. “You’re cold? Shall I make you some tea?” Nance said. “No.” I didn’t know what to tell her, disbelieving what I felt. Not the pits of the earth, not the swirling horror of Ober’s heart. Something worse. Slowly, not wanting to do it at all, I reached out my hand and pressed my palm over the sun in the deathwalker’s chart. “It’s cold, his heart is a piece of ice.” “That’s no surprise,” Nance said. “Notice how the other guards avoid him? He is wicked, that’s certain, and I think they fear him.” “Worse than that,” I said, and continued to press my palm to the table. If I had not felt the cold I would have thought there was simply nothing to feel. This business of heartbeats baffled me. Yet I felt them every time I touched the sun in a horoscope. I had felt the pounding of Erlan’s heart, the lighter rhythm of the hearts of Ober and Alakar. “His heart is frozen. Not cold, frozen. No heartbeat, no pulsing, nothing.” “And that means?” “What does it mean, you tell me what it means when a heart does not beat,” I whispered, fear stealing my voice. Her eyes widened and she paled. “I told you, Stargazer, I told you. The man is dead. He has no soul. And his heart no longer beats.” “Which is why he is called a deathwalker?” “I hate this!” Nance shrieked. “Don’t tell me more! I don’t want to know!” She ran out of our rooms and back toward the altar room, and while

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I stood staring at the circle, I heard her banging around with the candlesticks. “We have to warn Tarvik,” I said. “Ober mentioned Kovat’s death. It may be only a wish on her part, but still, Tarvik needs to know.” “How can he beware of an unknown danger?” I shrugged. “Distance, maybe. He could make himself unavailable? Avoid her and stick close to his guards?” “Impossible,” Nance said. “Guards could protect him from an attacker with a dagger, but magic? Also, Tarvik must dine with his guests. He can do no less as host.” Hadn’t thought about the etiquette among the unwashed. “Could he pretend to be sick and stay in his room?” “If you think Ober seeks to harm him, that would give her a good opportunity. She could claim to bring him healing potions and instead poison him.” “I don’t think she wants him dead until he’s married to Alakar. But she might have a potion to make him obey her. Maybe he needs you or me at his side to slap his hands if he tries to drink stuff he shouldn’t? Or better, we claim the Daughter wishes us in attendance to cure him with our constant prayers?” “How easily you expand the duties of the temple,” Nance moaned. “And how is Tarvik supposed to know your plan?” “How about I go secretly tonight to warn him?” “Not without me,” Nance said, and after considerable arguing I was forced to accept, once again, this kid could at times be stronger and more stubborn than myself. What would Tarvik think of me, after showing me the secret door and telling me he trusted me, if I popped up in his room from the passageway entrance and brought along Nance? “No one knows of this passage, not even my father,” he had said, and put my fingers on the touchstones so that I could use the passage. “I trust you,” he had said. If I was not so sure Ober planned to damage the guy, I would never break that trust. Now I had to balance his anger against my fear for his safety.

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“He is going to hate me for this,” I told Nance, “but that’s better than letting her drug him.” “Better for all of us,” Nance pointed out. “If Ober gains control, Stargazer, you’ll end up roommates with the magician.” That was a yucky thought. That night Nance and I, wrapped in dark cloaks like cat burglars and led by a protesting Lor, crept from the stable and moved silently in the shadows of the shrubs and outcropping rocks. We left Lor at the trees near the castle wall to wait for us. I didn’t have to tell him about the secret entrance. He was well aware of the sliding door into the stable and he wasn’t dumb. Sure, he would have figured it out. He wouldn’t tell. We were a stone’s throw from the castle when we were challenged. The voice was sharp, dry, inhuman, put it all together and my closest description is that it sounded like a magnified scrape of bones. “Who goes there? Identify yourself.” Grabbing Nance’s shoulder, I pulled her down flat on the ground and lay with an arm over her, did a whole lot of very soft whispering. “Shhh.” Because I figured he could probably hear us breathe. Lor’s deep voice announced loudly, “Me. The stablekeeper.” Lor seldom raised his voice, so the noise was to warn us and to cover up any sound we made. Nance lay motionless as she got the message. I slowly ran my hand up her back until I felt the fabric of her hood bunched at her neck, then pulled the hood up over her blond hair. My hair didn’t matter because it was as dark as the night anyway. We raised our heads and I felt Nance gasp. Felt a bit like gasping, myself. We did both manage to keep still. “Why are you out?” the scratchy voice demanded. His silhouette was clear against the starlit sky, taller than most men, hooded, long cape swinging out above his narrow boots. Nance whispered, “Deathwalker.” Lor said, “Been at the kennel. Got a dog out.” “Have you found it?” The voice ran like ice cubes down my spine. “Not yet. Be going to circle the castle.”

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“Why would one of your dogs be at the castle?” The tall shape moved toward Lor, and it looked to me as though only the boots moved. No swinging of shoulders, or turn of head. “Wouldn’t,” Lor grunted. “Woods beyond, might go there. Rabbits.” The figure reached Lor and stopped in front of him. We could see them both, the deathwalker looming over Lor, Lor holding his ground, not backing so much as a half step. “Who’s with you?” “You’re right,” Lor said slowly. “Shoulda brought another dog.” “Not dogs. People. Who else is out here with you?” The persistence of the man was not good. I poked Nance, then starting inching on my belly toward the castle wall, trying to keep my face down so it wouldn’t reflect starlight. The rest of me was fairly well concealed. Lor said, “Could use a lad to track dogs.” I dug my elbows into the ground and pulled myself forward and felt Nance move beside me. Slow going. As though Lor guessed as much, he actually kept up a conversation, maybe a first for Lor. “Don’t got one.” “A boy to track dogs? What are you going on about, man? Can’t you call the dog?” Lor did a very loud throat clearing, harrumphed a bit, coughed, then said, “Don’t know dogs, do ya?” We were at the door. I looked over and saw Lor step slightly away so the man turned automatically to stay near him. Effective, but then, I knew Lor was clever. The deathwalker now had his profile to us and that meant the rim of his hood blocked any side vision. I stood up, touched the stone, and as the door slid open I reached back and pulled Nance through. “What’s that! Did you hear that?” “Hear what? You hear the dog?” “Not your stupid dog! There’s a person over there by the wall!” Not any more. The door was closed and Ober’s man could wander up and down the wall all night, peering behind shrubs or running his hands along the stones. He wouldn’t find a sign of us. Catching Nance’s hand, I led the way. Throughout our blind journey down the black corridor I repeated to myself the arguments I would give to

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Tarvik, reasons he would have to accept. It would be no quick win. He would resist what would seem to him a coward’s withdrawal from his duties as ruler. Also, a guy who carried a token of his promised beneath his tunic next to his heart seemed to me unlikely to suspect her of evil intentions. Now that I had talked with the magician, I was prepared to argue with Tarvik until daybreak, if need be, because I was so sure of the danger planned for him. And in one matter only was I wrong. I misjudged Ober. The woman had no patience, wasted no time. When I pushed aside the rug covering the opening to Tarvik’s room, Tarvik sat alone on the stone floor, propped into a corner of the walls, his head dropped onto one shoulder, his eyes and mouth open but his mind and all his senses closed. I flew across the room and knelt beside him, grabbing his shoulders, then running my hands over his face and whispering his name. His skin was as cold as the stone walls. Nance stuffed her knuckles into her mouth to keep from screaming.

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Chapter 13 After fumbling to unhook the clasp on his cloak, I pushed aside the heavy fur, pressed my hand against the soft velvet of his tunic and could feel nothing, no rise and fall of his chest. Frantic, I ripped at the laces until I could work my hand under the material and slide my fingers across his skin. Cold. When I leaned closer, a faint breath touched my face and beneath my palm I felt his heartbeat. “He’s alive,” I whispered. Nance moved to my side and reached out a shaking hand to touch Tarvik’s forehead. “He feels dead.” “Not yet.” “What is it? What has happened? Will he die? Stargazer, what will we do, should we call his guards? Where is Artur?” I settled Tarvik against the wall, then caught Nance’s face between my hands to make her stop babbling and look at me. She trembled violently. “Listen to me, Nance. Tarvik was healthy when we saw him this morning, and I don’t see any injury. Ober must have given him some sort of drug.” “Can you heal him?” “Wish I could, but I can’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” “But he will die!” she wailed. “Hush. We can’t be caught here. If you want to save Tarvik, you must do as I say.” Nance blinked back tears and nodded. “Nance, we have to speak with the magician.” “That is not possible!” “Who else would know how to stop Ober’s poisons?” I asked. “Yes, I understand, but we cannot go past the guards to his cell,” Nance whispered.

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“Do you know how to reach the courtyard that serves as ceiling to the cell?” Nance thought I was leading us both to doom, but she was too terrified by Tarvik’s condition to argue. With his cloak and tunic open and his head fallen back against the wall, his throat was exposed and it was dead white and motionless, no visible sign of breathing or of a pulse. He wore his velvet cloak, probably about as warm as a sweater and used for an extra layer in the unheated rooms. His legs stuck out straight in front of him, sheathed in velvet pants and soft boots, again indoor wear, and the position suggested he had stood with his back to the wall, shoulder against the corner, and slid slowly down until he was sitting, then tilted sideways into the corner. His hands were open at his sides, rings gleaming. Still dressed, not getting ready for bed unless he slept in his clothes, who knew? Oh wait, I did. He’d slid onto the sheepskins beside me in his tent that first night after we met, and he had on his pants but nothing else, no shirt, no shoes. Of course, that was summer, so I still didn’t really know. His sword hung in its sheath from a peg on the wall. He hadn’t been expecting trouble. It looked more as though he had invited someone into his room and the reason I thought that, and surely Nancy Drew would have agreed, was because there were a couple of fancy metal goblets on a tray on the table. I hurried over to them, picked them up. They were both empty. “The deathwalker, do you think he did this?” Nance whimpered. “Okay, let’s figure out how to talk to the magician,” I said. Nance drew imaginary lines on the floor with her fingertip, explaining the rooms and corridors of the castle. “So there’s only one room between us and the courtyard?” “I think so,” she said. “It has been several years since I was free to wander the castle with Tarvik.” “Whose room is next to this?” “It used to be the chamber of Tarvik’s nursemaid. She was an old woman who had once been nursemaid to Kovat. She died long ago.” A thought stirred in my mind. “Was she fond of Tarvik?”

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“She was like a grandmother to him, protecting him in all things, even against Kovat’s discipline. Why do you ask?” “Maybe she’s the one who showed him the passageway. If so, it may extend to her room.” As there was no way to silently open Tarvik’s door and go past the guards to the courtyard, the secret passage had to be explored. We slipped back behind the rug and felt our way toward the other direction of the corridor until it ended in a blank wall of stone. My fingers searched until I found a slightly indented stone, which I did not want to press, but what were my choices? With Nance sniffling behind me, still horrified by her sight of Tarvik, I shivered violently at the thought of what might happen when I pressed the stone. Would a door swing inwards to a brightly lit room filled with Ober’s guards? We’d die together, Nance and I, and if Ober had given him poison, rather than a sleeping potion, Tarvik would die alone in his chamber. Ober would tell Kovat the three of us had died of fever, and would Kovat ever know otherwise? It’s not like these folks did autopsies. Given any other choice, I would have taken it. Biting my lower lip, determined not to scream no matter what happened, I closed my mind to visions of disaster and pressed the stone. A door indeed opened. It was a narrow stone slab set so well it pivoted into the passageway without creating any sound. I reached through the doorway and touched a rug backing. Moving it slowly to the side, I peered into a dimly lit room. If some fears had been unfounded, so had some hopes. There was no one in the room, but it wasn’t an unused room. The heavy swords and capes hanging from the walls above the sheepskin covered floor, and the one lamp flickering in a wall bracket, showed too clearly that guards slept here and came and went often enough to leave the lamp burning. Nance caught my hand. I whispered, “We have a little luck. The door to the hall is open.” Nance followed silently as I led the way across the room, into an empty corridor and around a corner and through an open archway to the starlit courtyard. It was a small space, perhaps once used as a private place to take the air, an empty square surrounded on three sides by blank palace wall and on the fourth side by an outer wall twice my height. If anyone came down

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the dead end hallway and shone a light through the archway to the courtyard, there we would be. The courtyard offered no hiding place. We knelt by the grill and hoped none of Ober’s guards would notice us, black shapes in the darkness. I leaned down and whispered, “Are you awake, magician?” I was answered by a long silence that I was afraid to break in case a guard might be standing in the cell. Finally the magician whispered, “Who asks?” “Stargazer,” I said. “Have you given the potion to the guards?” “There are no guards here.” “How am I to escape?” “I don’t know. But I need your advice. Something has happened to Kovat’s son. His eyes and mouth are open, he breathes, but his skin is cold and he’s unconscious. I can’t wake him.” “Ah, the lady Ober has outwitted you.” He sounded too weary to be either pleased or frightened. “Can I save him?” “No.” In the long silence I could imagine him thinking through his choices. Finally he said, “But perhaps I can. I must see him.” Fortunately I could not see Nance’s expression in the shadows. I knew what she was thinking. “We cannot save Tarvik ourselves,” I told her and pressed her hand. To the magician I said, “Have any suggestions?” “Do you wear a sash?” “Yes.” “How long is it?” Okay, I knew what he wanted. “I have two of them. Tied together they would be twice my height.” “That will do,” he whispered. “If you can lift aside the grillwork, tie one end of the sash to it and drop the other end to me.” “No, certainly not,” Nance said but as she said it, she reached under her cloak and untied the sash from her tunic and handed it to me. Together we struggled to lift the grill, with little Nance bearing most the weight. I was not surprised the old man could climb sashes to the courtyard. All these people were hard-muscled, and even Nance, though she was a head

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shorter than me, had twice my strength. He came up hand over hand, reached the level of the courtyard, leaned his head on his crossed arms on the edge of the opening, and then pulled himself out and onto the floor. Silently we replaced the grill, retrieved our sashes and crept back towards the empty room. Or rather, I thought it would be empty. No such luck. As we neared the door, we heard someone stir inside. A glance through the doorway showed a guard stretched full length on the sheepskins with his face to the wall. We stepped back into the courtyard and tried to blend into its darkness. “We came through a door at the back of that room,” I whispered to the magician. “I don’t know any other way out.” He looked back at the courtyard wall. We did not bother to discuss it. Even if we boosted each other up, it was too high to climb. “The guard was there when you came through?” he asked. “No, the room was empty.” “Then he only now returned to rest. We must wait until he sleeps.” And while we waited, would other guards return to the room, going in and out, taking turns at sleeping, until the night and Tarvik’s life ebbed away? My thoughts raced desperately between climbing the impossibly high wall to taking a chance on dashing through the room. I even leaned around the doorway to take a better look at the guard, thinking that if it was Artur I would ask him to help us. Sure, it wouldn’t be us he cared to help, and he might be angry that we’d freed the magician, but he would do whatever was needed to save Tarvik. We were not that lucky. The guard was no one I recognized, and he was working very slowly, hanging his sword on the wall, then sitting down on a sheepskin and carefully unbuckling his belt. I wanted to hiss at him to hurry up and go to sleep. Nance showed considerable control for someone who usually gave way to screaming. I could feel the agitation of her thoughts, almost as though she were drumming her fists on my shoulders. Time slowed, the way it always does for those who wait, but at last we heard the heavy rough sounds of the guard’s breathing and knew he slept deeply and with his mouth open. At other times of danger I had hesitated, then berated or congratulated myself, depending on how well my heartbeat managed to stay steady. This

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time I refused to worry about consequences, kept my thoughts on Tarvik, and tiptoed silently across the dimly lit room. As I passed the guard, he rolled over and uttered a sound. His outstretched hand grazed the hem of my cloak. Every muscle in my body tightened and my skin went cold. He rolled away to face the wall, his hand now clutching the sheepskin on which he lay. The sound was probably the buildup to a snore. I found myself on the far side of the secret doorway with no memory of my last few steps. When the magician and Nance were beside me, I pressed the stone to seal the entrance. We led the magician to Tarvik’s room. The old man bent over him and touched his skin. He ran his fingers over Tarvik’s throat until he found the faint pulse, then peered closely, his eyes narrowed. “Is he drugged?” I asked. The magician shook his head. “He is alive, which is good. Drugged, yes, not poisoned. He will remain like this through two risings of the sun.” “Two days! We will have to hide him for two days,” I thought aloud. “It could be worse,” the old man said. “With a deathwalker in the house, I feared much worse.” “That servant of Ober? What could he do?” To my surprise, the magician looked frightened. He shook his head, refusing to speak any more of the deathwalker. “But why would anyone drug Tarvik?” Nance asked. I said, “To give herself time to do what she wishes, without Tarvik’s interference.” Nance sucked in her breath. “It is you, Stargazer. She wants to destroy you.” “Or both of us.” “But why?” The magician said, “One who knows this drug also possesses drugs to control the mind. If she has such access to the prince, she can make him do her will.” I didn’t know why he explained this because surely he did not care about Tarvik’s fate. Perhaps he was concocting the worst reason he could

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think of so we would believe we needed his help. Or perhaps he was telling the truth. Didn’t matter. We could not take a chance on Ober’s control. If Kovat’s battles kept him away throughout the winter, he might return in the spring to find he no longer ruled his city. And Nance and I would be long since dead. “Can you wake him from this trance?” I asked. He shrugged. “From a potion? I owe you that for my freedom. But I see nothing here and my own powders were taken from me.” “What is it you need?” “Leaves. Roots. They could be gathered and mixed but I cannot wait to be captured again.” “If you had the plants you need, how long would it take you to mix your powders?” I asked. “A few moments.” “And how quickly would Tarvik waken?” “By morning.” With no assurance he spoke the truth, I decided to accept his offer. Without Tarvik, we were all in big trouble. “So we need to hide Tarvik for now.” Nance and the magician shouldered Tarvik’s weight between them, scuttling sideways in the narrow passage. I walked in front of them, feeling my way in the dark, my fingertips grazing the cold stone walls until we reached the end where I opened the outer door. Because it seemed likely the magician might try to leave us, I mentioned to him that our guards waited by the trees. Without the magician, the best we could do was hide Tarvik in the temple for two days or more and hope his mind returned, a plan filled with way too many possible disasters. However, the magician stayed with us, despite old Lor’s arrival and scowl of distrust. “He is the only one who can save Tarvik,” I whispered. Lor grunted, touched Tarvik’s face which was now as chilled as death, then said, “Cover the magician’s eyes.” When the magician did not protest my wrapping my sash across his eyes, I knew he had decided we were his best chance. We carried Tarvik through the stable to our chambers in the temple.

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“Lor must gather the plants,” Nance said. “Tell him what you need, magician.” “They cannot be found in the dark,” he objected. “I can find them,” Lor said. The roots and leaves that the magician required were common plants. Lor knew the hillside. He said he could put his hand on any plant from memory as well as sight. Although we did not remove the magician’s blindfold until we were well within the temple, it seemed to me a useless precaution. Any person would know from the smell that he was being led through a stable. When we reached Nance’s chamber, I pulled off my black wool cloak and tossed it to the shivering magician, then handed him the bread left over from our supper and a mug of mead. Following the magician’s directions, Nance and I shouldered Tarvik between us and walked him up and down the length of the room. His chin dropped forward on his chest. He breathed in ragged gasps, and sometimes not at all. When he fell silent we both panicked and shook him until his head rolled back and forth and he again began gasping for breath. His feet dragged and his knees buckled. It took all my strength to hang onto him and I stumbled sideways with one shoulder wedged under his arm and both of my arms around his chest. I thought Nance, Tarvik and I would all end in a pile on the floor. Just about when I was ready to give up and collapse, Lor returned with the roots and leaves. He took my place supporting Tarvik while the magician ground the herbs to bits. The bits were then covered with boiling water to brew into an evil-smelling tea. Partly to gain distance from the yucky smell, and partly to pull myself together after way too much tension, I wandered out to our private courtyard. Took a deep breath of clean, cold night air and gazed up at the stars in the silvered sky. I noticed a few embers in the fire pit. And the gate open. I caught a glimpse from the corner of my eye and moved carefully. My back was to the side wall near the gate and I did it slow step by slow step, kept looking at the stars, acted casual until I felt the wall against my spine. Slowly I lowered my head, let my eyes move sideways, saw him.

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He, too, was pressed against the wall in shadow to one side of the door. Watching me. Inside the deep hood all I could see was the dark glitter of his eyes picking up the reflection of the fire pit. Or maybe his eyes really were red. “Don’t move,” he rasped and slowly crossed the court toward me. His voice souned like a dry rattle of bones. Okay, this guy was tall and from his reputation I had to guess he was strong and could deliver a wicked punch. I could shout for help but obviously he had dismantled our guard again. Lor would come running, a strong old man but no match for this creature. Halfway across the court he reached out one long bony hand. When it hit my windpipe, I was dead. Lor might throw a knife if I screamed, would that help? This creep was a deathwalker, no heartbeat. Could a deathwalker be killed? Maybe I should run out the open gate, down the hill screaming. And maybe Ober’s other guards were out there waiting. Fighting was pointless because even little Nance was twice as strong as me. Okay, Claire, think. If you got no strength, what’s left? Oh yeah, wits. Maybe I could talk him to death. “What are you doing here?” I asked and tried really hard to sound calm. “Where’s the prince?” he whispered. “What prince?” I asked, a tad louder. “If you call the others, they all die.” If he wasn’t called deathwalker for nothing, we were all in trouble. Still, I wasn’t good at the suicidal thing, not if I could avoid it, and I glanced at the firepit behind him Maybe I could lower my head and run, butt into him, maybe knock him into the fire? “Where’s the prince?” he asked again. A form moved in the doorway behind him and I knew it was Lor. Did he have a knife or some other weapon? That might work. Or not. Could this man be harmed? I had to let Lor know the problem, so he could grab the others and get them out through the stables and, damn, here I was playing sacrificial whatever, not my normal personality. Still, maybe

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they could bring a bunch of guards and I could hope they got here before I did my final check out. “You know what?” I said, loud enough to hold his attention and warn Lor and also cover any sound Lor might make. “You’ve got no heartbeat, fella! How come?” He hesitated, and with his back to the fire, his eyes still glowed red, not a pleasant sight. “How do you know that?” “I’m magic,” I said. “That’s what I do. I know things. You have no heartbeat, so I guess that means you’re already dead, guess that means it’s too late to kill you. Are you a vampire?” “What?” He stopped and waited, not worried. He knew he had me trapped and so he wasn’t in a hurry. That did not make me feel better. “Vampire. A dead thing brought back to life, that can be offed with a wooden stake. Or a cross. Or garlic.” I went through all my memories of vampire movies and ran out of information. He started moving toward me again, so I was also running out of time. “None of what you say means anything. I cannot be destroyed. But you can.” With one more step he was in reaching distance, grabbing while I was ducking, his hand going past me into the wall. My luck ended there. His other hand dropped and caught my shoulder, sent me spinning. I hit the wall so hard I thought I heard my bones break. Pain shot from my shoulder to my neck to my head. There were lightning flashes in my eyes and for a second I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. Unfortunately, I could feel. Something warm and sticky, which always means blood, streamed down my face from a burning pain on my forehead. My hands went numb under me, fingers popping. I tried to push away from the ground to get up, but I couldn’t move. Then my fingers closed around dirt and I managed to pull together a handful. Those skeleton fingers hauled me up and I tossed the dirt into the open hood. He shoved me back against the wall so that I was facing him and rubbed at his eyes with his other hand. “You’re dead,” he hissed. Behind him shapes moved. I had to hold his attention and so I did what any city girl knows to do. When all else fails, scream. I shrieked, “Dead like you! You’re dead, dead, dead!”

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His fingertips touched my throat, started to push. I couldn’t move away so I kept screaming until my voice cut back to a gurgle. My breath caught, going nowhere, stuck. I tried to kick him, couldn’t lift my leg. The moving shapes, the fireglow, the red eyes, all started blacking out on me. And then the hand fell away and he let out one rasping howl. I slid slowly down the wall, sat on the ground, breathed. When I could see again, I really liked what I saw. Lor held the deathwalker while the magician reached around him and wound a rope. They had dropped a blanket and the rope over his head, worked together those two, and snared the man. When his arms were bound to his sides, they tossed him on the ground and tied his thrashing legs and feet. Crisscrossing ropes held the blanket around his hooded head. We could hear muffled curses. “Take care of Tarvik,” Lor told the magician. “I’ll get this one.” I scraped myself off the ground and followed the magician back inside. The magician’s tea was ready. It was a good thing Tarvik was unconscious because that was the only way he could have got his nose past the smell to drink it. The magician dribbled the mixture down Tarvik’s throat, as well as down the front of his tunic. “Keep him on his feet,” he said, “and he will wake sooner. Now you must let me go.” I agreed, not so much for his salvation as for ours. Given enough night cover, he could be free of the city and into the hills before his absence was discovered. I doubted the guards would bother to check his cell until time for his morning meal. The success of his escape mattered as much to us as to him. If caught, he would be forced to tell how he had escaped and who had helped him. When Lor returned, I told him the deal we’d made and said, “For the good of all of us, he needs to get away from here.” Lor nodded. He did not like to do it, but he knew I was right. I followed them back to the gate where our poor guard lay moaning, going to have another monster headache, that boy. Lor had a horse waiting, and bound with more leather straps and tossed across its back was the bundled shape of the deathwalker. “What are you going to do with him?” I asked.

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“Rid us for good,” Lor said. The magician said, “He can’t be killed.” “He has no heartbeat,” I agreed. “He can be buried,” the magician said. Lor grunted and that’s when I saw the spade balanced loosely on his shoulder. “You wouldn’t bury him alive?” As soon as I asked, I wished I hadn’t. “Go help Nance,” Lor said. He didn’t wait for me to answer. He set off on foot to guide the magician through the darker paths, beyond the guard routes and the huts and tents, until the magician would have a good start on pursuers. We couldn’t give him a horse because a horse would be missed, but we sent him off with a wool cloak and with a pouch of food. The magician said, “I will not thank you for my life, star woman. You took my one chance to regain for the god of Thunder the allegiance of Kovat. In releasing me this night, you have balanced our debt. If we meet again, we owe each other nothing.” “Fair enough,” I said, sincerely hoping I would never meet up with him again. He wasn’t one of those fuzzy people that I wanted to add to my list of friends. Still, he’d helped Lor save me from the deathwalker. He glanced at me, looked away, then said so softly I barely heard him, “Beware of Ober.” So maybe he did think he owed me a penny’s worth of gratitude. I watched the two old men blend into the night, guiding the burdened horse. After dumping half a mug of water on the guard, I left the rest on the ground beside him. Nursing careless guys was getting to be a bad habit. Then I returned to the temple to join Nance in her vigil of the other careless guy. She had dropped Tarvik onto a pile of fur while I was gone. We hoisted him up again, wedged our shoulders beneath his arms, and dragged him back and forth, back and forth. Although he had not fluttered an eyelid, I could now feel his body heat where he was pressed against me, and his limp arm around my neck was warm.

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“If he does not wake by sunrise it will not matter,” Nance moaned. “You and I shall be dead from exhaustion and will not need him.”

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Chapter 14 When we couldn’t carry Tarvik’s weight any longer, we dropped him in a corner. Nance sank down on the rugs nearby. “What if the magician was wrong?” Nance moaned. “What if it is not a simple potion?” “Do you think Ober meant to kill him?” “Worse than that. Perhaps she is a lifedrainer,” she said. “Are lifedrainers worse than deathwalkers?” Sitting on the floor beside Tarvik, I picked up one of his hands and rubbed it briskly between mine, not that I knew what good that would do but it’s something people are forever doing on TV shows. He had a gold ring on each finger, some of them decorated with small jewels. I studied the rings, partly to see the pretty designs and partly to have something to do besides add Nance’s worries to my own. “They are monsters in the western mountains,” Nance said. “They have terrible magic that can destroy your mind and suck out your soul.” “Is that one of those bedtime stories nursemaids tell children to help them have happy dreams?” “Laugh at me if you wish, but everyone knows they reside there, which is why I can go to the plateau with my wings and not worry anyone will follow. The shepherds stay far from those hills.” “You told me when we were on the plateau, but Nance, have you ever seen one?” Talking about monsters in the mountains kept Nance from fretting about Tarvik. He didn’t show any signs of waking. I couldn’t find the pulse at the side of his neck, so I slid my hand under his tunic again and across the hard muscles of his chest until I felt his heartbeat. Then I laced closed the front of his tunic and wrapped his soft cloak around him like a blanket.

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“How would I know? How would anyone know?” Nance shouted. “That’s the whole thing! They can be invisible.” Lowering her voice to a whisper, she added, “They are said to have hairy bodies and leathery wings and they eat children, but when they come among us, some say they make themselves look like us. Ober could be a sorcerer. Lifedrainers are sorcerers, or the work of sorcerers, or else they control them. No one knows which.” I wasn’t worried about lifedrainers, which were certainly no more than a story, but I was worried about Lor. He should have returned by now. Leaving Nance to watch Tarvik, I went to the stable to look for him. The sun, not yet above the horizon, cast a long glow in the eastern sky. The stars faded. In the chill air I could feel the warmth of the horses. They made soft sounds which perhaps meant they expected something. Did Lor feed and water them at daybreak? If so, where was he? Did he lie injured or dying in some seldom-traveled place? I would have guessed him far stronger than the magician, but the magician had his tricks. The horses reached out their noses to me, obviously expecting something. I could force myself to face a magician alone, but I could not force my hand to reach past those enormous teeth to stroke a horse, no matter how gentle the dark eyes. I saw Black and Pacer, and, at the far end of the row gleaming white in the morning light, was Tarvik’s horse, Banner. Peering from the doorway I saw a temple guard stop by the far wall, his back to me, and do a slow cat stretch, his arms above his head, to get the kinks out of his spine. I knew exactly how he felt. If I stepped from the stable door into the early light my shadow would touch him. Slowly I edged my face around the doorway and watched him walk away. “Hssst.” The whispered warning set me shaking. I spun to see Lor slip past me into the stable, leading the horse. There was nothing on its back now. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “Where were you? The sun is up.” “Hmmph,” he grunted and moved around the stable forking feed into the troughs. “I was afraid that magician might have harmed you.” The white eyebrows drew together. “Harmed me?”

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“I thought you’d be back before now.” “Had a hole to dig.” Right, didn’t want to know any more about that. “The magician, where is he?” “Gone,” Lor said. Although he spoke briefly to me, he murmured long speeches to his horses as he rubbed their sides and thrust his hands behind their ears to scratch them. He treated them like puppy dogs. “Could he be caught again?” “He’s safe enough if he follows where I pointed him,” Lor said, then added, “You’re not.” I let out my breath in a puff of agitation, knowing he wasn’t going to answer my questions. Worse, he was right. Soon the guards would come looking for Tarvik and somebody would stop by the stable. I ducked back through the temple door and closed the stone. When I told Nance that Lor was back, she cried, “So the magician and his magic are gone and Tarvik still lies beyond our reach. We have let that horrible man trick us.” “Oh lord, I hope not.” “When will he wake?” Nance sobbed, flinging her arms around me, stretching up to press her tearful face against mine. “Tell me that, Stargazer! Draw your magic circle and tell me what it holds for Tarvik!” “You’re getting me wet with your weeping. Do be still. Let me think.” “You think too much!” Nance sputtered. “He could be dying, even as you talk.” To keep us both busy, I dipped a cloth in a bowl of water and told Nance to do the same. We wiped perspiration from Tarvik’s face. Was this feverish flush better than the lifeless cold of earlier? The magician had closed Tarvik’s eyes. “He looks like he’s sleeping,” I said. “What sort of sleep is that, that cannot be broken? Soon his guards will search for him. Shall I tell them he lies here, his mind stolen by some evil spell?” “If they come here, I’ll go to the gates and tell them you are busy praying. You don’t need to speak to them. Ober can suspect whatever she wants but she cannot take over the city in a day.”

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“Not without her deathwalker.” “Yah, there’s that. Didn’t figure on the deathwalker showing up.” “Nor did you think Ober would poison Tarvik so soon,” Nance grumbled. “Tarvik had better wake today from his lazy dreaming or he will have no reason to wake. He will find himself no more than a slave in his own lands.” Now that his skin was warm and he breathed evenly, she stopped worrying and started fussing. I left her to tend him. She brushed back his hair and washed his face and smoothed his tunic with constant nervous strokes. If that didn’t wake him, what would? Rather than listen to her complain, I combed my hair back into a ponytail, and tied a rolled scarf around my head so it covered my forehead. My aching bod wanted to collapse on the sheepskins but instead I got out my temple gear. So there I was, face painted, robe dragging, when the guards began banging on the gate. I slid past Nance. Whether her wide-eyed shock was at the noise or at my appearance, I did not stop to ask. Crossing the courtyard, I called through the gate, “Who is there?” “Your guards, keeper of the temple. The lady Ober has sent her guards to request you go to her now.” Right, sure, I was going to march into the lion’s mouth. “That cannot be done. My orders must be from the prince.” “My lady, the prince — the prince cannot be found. And the magician of Thunder has escaped from his cell.” From the hesitation in his voice, I knew the guard spoke carefully, hoping to warn me about the situation at the castle without saying anything that would create suspicion in Ober’s men. “We must pray to the Daughter for the answer to such strange occurrences,” I called. I got better everyday at imitating Nance’s fancy phrases. “The ladies Ober and Alakar may enter the temple at midday if they wish to join our prayers.” And if Tarvik is still asleep at midday, we will have some long praying to do, I thought to myself. “My lady Ober commands to see you now,” demanded another voice.

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That gave me no choice. I had to play my role with all the display Nance usually tossed into the act. Throwing open the gate, I found myself staring at four of Ober’s men. Nothing to do but wing it. Standing in the entry in the long shadows and bright sun streaks of early morning, I raised my arms so my bracelets and rings flashed reflected light. The temple guards stepped back, their eyes lowered. Ober’s men remained unmoving. I chanted, “Even now the Daughter of the Sun seeks the council of her father. To disturb the prayers of her priests would be to break the golden thread that binds the temple to the Daughter’s heart. Leave us and we shall put aside all other concerns to pray for the protection and swift return of her servant, Tarvik.” From the corner of my gaze I watched Ober’s guards. Raised as they had been, beyond the temple’s reach, they might doubt me, but I was pretty sure they were all terrified of Kovat and would hesitate to force entry to his temple. Without waiting to give them any chance to make a bad decision, I closed the gate and slipped the bolt into place. Nance’s temple guards would remain loyal, but I did not know how long they could hold off the larger number of Ober’s men. Back home, my avoidance of run-ins with authority consisted mainly of driving within the speed limit. Not much preparation. Oh, right, I had some skill at dodging bad boys. Those creeps probably qualified as bad boys. I hurried back inside. “Midday, indeed,” Nance said, giving Tarvik a sharp slap. “He may well sleep past midday of tomorrow or the day beyond that.” “You had better think of long, convincing chants.” “I know enough chants to bore Ober through six settings of the sun, but will she wait?” “Could we make the ritual more impressive than usual?” I asked. “Something so unusual that people would be, oh, I’m not sure what I mean, but I think we need something magical.” “We could start by dressing your hair properly.” “You’re not listening.”

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“I understand what you say,” Nance said, “and it frightens me. You bend and use the rituals of the temple to gain your own wishes, with no thought that you might anger the Daughter and bring lightning bolts upon us all.” “Is that something you ever saw the Daughter use?” I asked, wondering where the average hiker learned that skill. Nance shouted, “How would I know! I have never used the temple for anything other than devotion. Now, with you here, it has become a place to receive messages through weird star circles. Also, my private rooms, forbidden to all but templekeepers, have been entered by a wicked magician of Thunder. And, now it seems, I have as a permanent guest my wretched cousin.” “You could always hand him over to Ober’s guards. If, of course, you don’t ever want to see him again.” Nance threw up her hands and made a gasping noise. I waited. Her beliefs weren’t mine. She had to settle in her own mind how far out of bounds she was willing to go. There were purposes for which I would not use my knowledge of astrology, such as advising Kovat on slaughtering innocent people, or helping a couple of felon wannabes back home, so I knew how Nance felt. She had to make her own choice about the use of the temple. “We cannot use the high rituals of the sacred days,” she decided finally, “but we can wear the best robes and lengthen the chants.” We arranged Tarvik in a comfortable position on the rugs, folding a sheepskin to pillow his head and covering him with another blanket, then left him. As Nance tore at my hair and hung robes about me that nearly equaled my own weight, my fear for Tarvik turned to envy. I’d trade places any time. He could chant, I could nap. By midday we both resembled altar decorations more than people. The robes Nance chose were so covered with jewels and gold threads, the cloth could barely be seen beneath the ornaments. They were so heavy, I feared I would stumble and end up sprawled on the altar. My hair was an itching nest of glitter.

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Nance had tied a band of silk over my bruised forehead, then arranged a chain to dangle a heavy gold ornament between my eyes. Occasionally, when I moved my head, it caught and reflected light and I found myself cross-eyed from watching it. Nance added paint on paint until my face in the mirror looked more like the picture above the altar than the Daughter herself could have done. Before entering the temple’s main room, we had one last attempt at waking Tarvik. I patted his face and called his name softly and rubbed his hands. Nance would not bother to limit her effort. She emptied a flask of water by dashing it into his face. “Nance! Stop! That serves no purpose. Oh. Wait. Did his eyelids move?” “Tarvik, wake up, you useless lump,” she scolded, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him so hard that his head snapped back and forth. “Don’t, you’ll hurt him,” I said. “Tarvik, you must wake up,” she wailed. “Please, Tarvik, do hear me, wherever you are!” For a moment I thought I saw the muscles in his jaw tighten, but then his head drooped. I pried away Nance’s clawing hands and lowered him back into the blankets. “No use doing any more,” I told her. “All you’ll do is bruise him. His mind is going to stay asleep until the drug wears off and there is nothing more we can do. Come on, we must so impress these people they don’t dare think of searching the temple beyond the altar room.” Ober, Alakar, and a small following of servants and guards entered the temple at our choice of time and at our command. Score one for us. While I murmured memorized chants, my mind worried away at other ideas. If Ober feared the powers of the Daughter, she would never have plotted against Tarvik. Therefore, she must fear I had unknown powers. Perhaps she also feared Kovat would return suddenly. Because she knew he had stopped at the temple to speak to me, she must be frantic to learn his plans. On the chance that she suspected I possessed a magic greater than her own supply of trickery, I needed to do what I could to keep her believing this.

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My grandmother, may her soul rest in peace, knew odd bits of magic. Among other things, she could open her fist, turn it palm up, and she appeared to be holding a small ball of fire. Very impressive for about thirty seconds. She tried to teach the trick to me but I never mastered it so I don’t think it was a magician’s trick, I think it was real magic. Like so many of the residents of Mudflat, my grandmother had touches of real magic, the kind that’s inherited, not learned. Unfortunately, I hadn’t inherited that firein-hand bit. It would have impressed Ober, I bet. While I stood motionless and tried to look magical, whatever that looks like, Nance chanted endlessly, breaking into the ritual words with occasional reassurances. “The Daughter has removed from our beloved city the evil presence of the magician of Thunder as easily as she once removed from our beloved ruler the evil presence of fever,” she murmured. Alakar and Ober glanced at each other. Facing them, I could see their doubts. When Nance paused, Ober said, “And what, oh priest of the Daughter, has become of the ruler’s son? Has the Daughter removed him also?” “Those whom the Daughter loves will remain ever in her protection,” Nance chanted, and it pleased me to hear her. I had suffered through enough of her lessons. This time it was Nance who had memorized what I told her to say. “Where is Tarvik?” Ober demanded. “As she moves the clouds and frees the sun, so has the Daughter moved the prince closer to herself so she may even now heal him of some evil spell visited upon him. As she saved his father, so does she now save the son. When he has absorbed the power of her healing, he will again be made visible to his devoted people. Now, let us together thank the Daughter for her ever watchful care of our beloved son of Kovat.” When Nance said some evil had been directed at Tarvik, Ober did that paler shade of white thing. She must have figured that if we knew Tarvik had been poisoned, we might also know the poisoner. I kept my face blank. Nance began a chant that was going to last well past my ability to stand silently. Not bound to do so, I turned and circled the altar, swinging my arms and a lamp in empty gestures allowing me to move and stretch inside

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the weight of my robe. I hoped Ober, too, had passed a sleepless night and would soon decide to return to the comforts of her room. As I turned from the altar, I faced the archway entrance from the temple to Nance’s rooms. The others stood with their backs to the opening, facing the altar. I bit my lip to hold back a cry of surprise. In the shadows, unnoticed by any of them, stood Tarvik. He stood with his feet apart, his hips forward and his shoulders back, in that slightly slouched stance I had seen when he faced an opponent on the day of the games, just before he drew his sword, lunged forward, and attacked. Lucky for somebody that his sword was back in his room, hanging on the wall. I would have raised a finger to my lips to warn him, but then I saw I didn’t need to. His face was hard, his mouth tight with anger, his eyes narrowed. He aimed all his fury in his glare, staring through the temple gloom at the soft glow of red-gold hair that framed the pale face of Alakar.

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Chapter 15 Ober’s voice rose above Nance’s chant. “Do you try to tell me the prince is now invisible? Do you mean you have not seen him and know nothing of where he may be?” “The Daughter of the Sun protects —” Nance began. “Stop! I do not care to hear that again. I have asked a direct question of you, Nance,” Ober cried. Gotta say, that brought out a dead silence. At the center of the room, directly beneath the hanging lamp, Nance stood with her arms outstretched, her hair and robes glittering in the flickering light of candle flames. Facing her were Ober, wrapped in fur, and Alakar, dressed in velvet, backed by a cluster of Ober’s guards. Our own guards waited beyond the door in the courtyard, which was better all around. They would have fallen on their faces in terror to hear Ober shout at Kovat’s priest in the presence of the altar. I was proud of Nance. She stood motionless and let the echoes of Ober’s cry shock every listener. Although they did not belong to the temple of the Daughter, Ober’s guards knew Erlan and his family, and therefore themselves, were under the rule of Kovat. They knew his faith. Ober might as well have shouted insults at Kovat himself. Softly Nance said, “Consort of the younger brother of mighty Kovat, do you question the knowledge I have been given by the Daughter of the Sun?” Ober hesitated. Tight lines pulled at her mouth and eyes. She said, “I do not question the wisdom of the Daughter. I question only of where the prince may be, driven as I am by my loyalty to our ruler and his son. If I speak improperly in the temple, the Daughter must be begged to forgive me. My concern is for our dear Tarvik.”

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Nance nodded but did not reply. I knew she was thinking through all the possible questions and answers we had discussed earlier. Apparently she couldn’t remember anything that seemed to answer Ober’s words, because she began another long chant from the rituals. I turned to look again for Tarvik. He was gone. Joining Nance in front of the altar, I helped her move and swing about the candles and added my voice to her chanting. Her hands trembled. If her voice faltered, I’d have to cover. How long could we continue like that? A fist, or perhaps the hilt of a sword, banged on the outer door. Ober and her party swung around to face the noise. The doors flew open, their weight tearing at the hinges, or so it sounded to me. In the center of the daylit opening stood Tarvik. I grabbed the candleholder from Nance before she dropped it. My voice hid her sudden silence. I cried out, “Your faithful servants thank you, kind Daughter, for the care and return of the son of Kovat.” The effort was wasted. No one paid any attention to Nance or me, not even Tarvik. He walked swiftly into the temple. Behind him followed the temple guards. Beyond them, in the open gateway to the courtyard, I could see a growing crowd of Tarvik’s castle guards led by Artur. Tarvik stopped in front of Ober and planted his feet in that solid stance. In a voice as low and quiet as death, he said, “You will leave my city and take all of your people with you, Ober. I shall allow you to pack what is needed for your journey homeward, but you must be gone by sunset.” Ober rushed toward him with outstretched arms. The fury in his face stopped her. She stood in front of him, her hands raised, and attempted to smile. “We were to winter here until the return of my husband and your father!” Tarvik glared at her but said nothing. Ober continued, “What will our ruler think on his return if we leave without his permission?” His thoughts crossed his scowling face as he decided what to say. He spoke in that low flat tone that covered anger he could barely control. “Will you remain then and explain to Kovat that Alakar came to my room last night and mixed for me with her own hands a drink? Shall I keep

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for him the locket she wears so he may see within it the traces of the powder she added to my drink?” Ober reached out to him with both hands, as she smiled and tilted her head and gazed at him from the corners of her half-closed eyes. “It was no more than a love potion,” she told him, her voice all sugar. “Is it so wrong for my daughter to desire to win your love and wish to speed the plans for your marriage?” Tarvik said softly, “A strange love potion, Ober, that puts a man into a sleep from which he cannot wake. It was my fortune that my father warned me of you before he left, and my fortune that the Daughter of the Sun protected me.” Her body went rigid. Alakar cried out, “Kovat warned you?” Ober glared at her daughter and Alakar covered her face with her hands as though she expected to be struck. Tarvik spun away from them both and hurried out of the temple. His guards remained at the gate. Ober’s glare turned on Nance and me. Okay, so now she knew why Kovat had sought me out. All her suspicion, hatred and wish for revenge were there to see. And her fear. She did not know how we had managed to save Tarvik. Easy to see she was afraid to touch me, not knowing what magic I possessed. Even Nance couldn’t come up with a chant to match the situation. We watched silently as Ober and her party left the temple. When they were gone, Nance whispered, “She was so angry she almost broke her own spell.” Knowing Nance half-believed the lifedrainer tales, I said, “What a pity, I had hoped Ober would conjure up a hairy beast with leather wings.” “Or turn into one,” Nance assured me. “Some say the sorcerers are the lifedrainers.” The long night’s vigil, to mention nothing of being manhandled by the deathwalker, plus hauling around Tarvik’s dead weight, had done me in. I would be glad to see Ober, Alakar and their guards leave, but all I really wanted to do was shed my temple robes and decorations and collapse on my bed of sheepskins.

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In the late afternoon we watched through a crack in the outer gate as the procession wound slowly down the hill toward Erlan’s lands. They followed the valley road until they rounded the hill’s base and moved out of our sight. Ober and Alakar sat proudly on their horses, spines stiff, heads high. They wore heavy cloaks lined with fur and their woven scarves were wrapped around their heads and pulled forward to hide their faces. Their escort of guards walked in front and in back of them. At the rear, Ober’s servants led several smaller horses loaded with bundles. “Hmm, I do regret that no request was sent to the temple to provide an escort. We would have been so thrilled to comply,” Nance said and giggled. “Weird. Nobody asked about the deathwalker. Maybe they think he stayed behind to spy.” Nance and I ate our evening meal, and while she stirred up our fire in the courtyard I flipped open the lock on the gate. Then we settled down on a pile of sheepskins and leaned back against a stone bench, our bare feet outstretched to the flames. The smoke drifted in the chill air and blended with the late autumn smell of dry grass. We both knew we waited for Tarvik. He wouldn’t stay put in the castle surrounded only by guards and slaves, not now. He wouldn’t consider them suitable listeners and he’d want to know what had happened while he was out. When the guard at last knocked on the gate, Nance didn’t waste breath asking who was there, but called out, “Enter, Tarvik.” He closed the gate behind himself before joining us. He was wrapped in fur and wore heavy boots that looked like sheepskin with the skin side out, very warm. The boy’s wardrobe never ceased to impress me. Gee, I hadn’t even seen a closet in his room, so where did he keep the stuff? Maybe Artur did double duty as a butler and delivered his outfits from a walk-in closet down the hall. I wanted to ask him but maybe now wasn’t the time. Sitting down on the ground near us, he stared into the flames. “It’s no good acting cross,” Nance said. “I suppose you feel very important now that you have ordered Ober and Alakar out of your city, but you are not Kovat. Although your guards are undoubtedly amazed by you, Stargazer and I still think of you as a pampered, stupid boy and a dead weight to carry.”

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Tarvik frowned, started to rise, then settled back down and drew his furs tighter around himself. “You must stop drinking anything anyone hands you,” Nance added. “And you must eat less. If you get any heavier, we cannot possibly save you next time.” “Why did you save me this time?” he asked, still not looking at us. “As for that, I prefer you to rule the city than be ruled by Ober. How did you know about Alakar’s locket?” Tarvik watched the fire to avoid meeting our stares. “Alakar came to my room and said she wished to speak alone with me. She has never done that before. I was surprised but I had no reason to refuse her.” “No, no, that would be beyond rude,” Nance chided. “And why should I be rude to Alakar? She was courteous to me, which is more than I receive from you. And so she entered and we spoke.” “Of what did you speak?” He glared at Nance. “That is not for your knowing. It was nothing, just, um, talk. She said she would prepare my evening drink. I was on the far side of the room beneath a lamp looking at a finger ring she had handed me. She said the ring was her gift to me. She said it had belonged to Erlan and asked if I knew what the markings on it meant. But I could not see the markings in the shadows and I looked up to tell her so. “That is when I saw her open her locket and shake powder into my cup.” “You saw her add powder but you drank it?” I asked. “Some of the women, umm, I know they still believe in love potions. I thought she had got something like that. Those powders are harmless.” “But why would you drink it at all, no matter what you thought it was? Tarvik, I warned you about Ober. Did you think I was joking?” I demanded. “This wasn’t Ober, it was Alakar,” he mumbled. “A love potion could not hurt me. And Alakar was promised to me.” Nance giggled and cried out, “Oh, I see! Do you not understand, Stargazer? Tarvik thought he would drink the harmless love potion and then throw himself at the beautiful Alakar and let the silly girl think it was her own potion that had roused his passion. She could only blame herself.” I thought in another moment Tarvik might throw himself at Nance, with passion, all right, but not the kind she meant.

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To change subjects, I hoped, I said, “But where was your guard Artur?” “He has a family. I gave him the night free to visit them.” “No fun being alone with Alakar if Artur is watching,” Nance teased. Tarvik growled at her and I said quickly, “When did you figure out Alakar had tricked you?” He glared at Nance, then turned to me and said, “I knew last night. Soon after I drank, the room grew larger, then smaller around me. I could see Alakar watching me. Inside I turned to nothing. My strength left me and I could not stand. I fell into a corner and even then she watched and did not reach out a hand to help me. When I woke in the temple I knew Alakar had drugged me and in some way you and Nance had saved me.” As there were parts of the previous night I preferred not to explain, such as how I had spied on the women from the secret passageway where I was not supposed to be, and saw Ober mix the powders, I spoke quickly. If my words left him with the idea that my knowledge of Ober came from my magic star charts, that shouldn’t backfire. “Ober’s stars show evil, Tarvik, that’s why I had to talk to the magician. He told me Ober knew how to mix poisons. Nance and I came to warn you, but we were too late. So we had to trade the magician his freedom for a potion to save you.” In one circling of the sun, Tarvik had been poisoned by his promised love, woke in a forbidden chamber of the temple, cast out his uncle’s family, and learned Nance and I had set free the captive magician. As I hoped, it was so much information he didn’t go back to pick out the gaps in my explanation, didn’t even ask how I learned about Ober’s treachery or how Nance and I entered his room to find him. How we managed to carry him to the temple, or even how we managed to get the magician out of prison, all that stuff went unquestioned. Instead he went straight to what hurt and asked, “Why should Alakar wish to poison me? Am I so terrible? Did she think it pleasanter to murder me than to wed me?” Poor baby, what a blow to his ego. I said, “The magician said it was probably a potion to make you sleep for several days. I don’t think she wanted to kill you.”

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Nance added, “Ober believed Stargazer’s powers could protect you. I think what she really wanted was time to get rid of Stargazer. Then when you woke, she would wed you to Alakar and take over the rule of the city.” “Take the city from me? I would not allow that!” “You watched Alakar put a potion in your cup and then you drank it,” Nance said, smiling sweetly at him. “Anyone else would only have pretended to drink, clever cousin.” Tarvik glowered at us. “I should have banished you with Alakar,” he sputtered. “Besides, what you say cannot be so. How could Ober plan to rule when she knows my father will return by springtime?” I wondered about that, too. Plus I’d had a vision of Kovat in some strange place, unconscious or dead. No point telling Tarvik about that. Still, I had a few questions. “Would Erlan turn against his brother?” Nance sucked in her breath. Tarvik stared at me, eyes wide. “He could not! Kovat is a far greater warrior than Erlan!” “Erlan won’t need to fight if he can use Ober’s poisons.” Tarvik jumped to his feet and stood over me. I resigned myself to being grabbed by the arm and dragged somewhere. Instead, he only shook his fists in the air and shouted, “You lie, Stargazer! Your circles and your stars lie, also!” “The stars don’t say Erlan wants to kill Kovat. They only show Ober has a whole lot of wicked in her. I don’t know what’s coming.” He paced at the edge of the fire glow, where his pale hair caught the light. He wouldn’t look at us or speak to us. Even Nance didn’t want to taunt him now. If I was right, and Erlan poisoned Kovat, Ober’s banishment had gained us a month or two longer to live, no more. We all knew Tarvik’s men were no match for Erlan’s army. If Erlan wanted to capture the city, its only defense was a small number of faithful temple and castle guards. Unable to find a reply, Tarvik stopped his pacing and ran out of the courtyard. “He will not sleep tonight,” Nance said. “No.” “But I will. Erlan or no, I would have to stick my fingers in my eyes to keep them open. And if I judge my cousin rightly, he will be pounding on our gate again at daybreak.”

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Nance was wrong. Tarvik didn’t wait for daybreak. A short time after she went to her room to sleep, while I stirred the last embers of our fire and tried to figure out what to do, Tarvik returned. He spoke as though he had never left, without greeting or explanation. As soon as I closed the gate behind him, he said, “Tomorrow you must draw your circles and find a way for me to save my city.” “Me? Why do you think I can do that?” “You drew your circles and knew what Ober planned and how to save me, did you not?” “The magician knew how to save you, Tarvik.” “Yes, but you knew to seek the magician. There. And you were right. You will look again and your stars will show you what I must do,” he insisted, frowning at me. “Okay, I’ll look, but I can’t promise to find an answer.” His agitation rose. “My father knew your powers were greater than the powers of Thunder or Ober. I know he was right about you. If your stars tell me how to save my city, I will reward you with more than gifts. I will build you a castle and you will have your own guards and slaves.” I was too surprised to reply. He pivoted on his heel and marched back out of the courtyard, and as I pushed the gate closed, I saw his guard waiting for him. Artur, who always acted as though I were invisible, gave me a quick smile, completely unnerving me. A castle, power, and my own army of quaking servants and all I needed to do was figure out a way to defeat Erlan’s army. Otherwise, we would all very probably be dead. This nightmare just didn’t want to stop.

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Chapter 16 With a flaming stick from the fire I burned a circle into Nance’s largest wooden table. “Scream away, child,” I muttered as I worked. “If I paint my circle, you forget and wash it away. If I mark it in the courtyard soil, you forget and run through it, rubbing it out. Order the servants to build you another table. This one is mine.” “But it belongs to the temple! It is sacred!” As I had already told her what I had to do, I didn’t bother to argue. The difficulty of my assignment helped shut out the noise of her complaints, until she gave up scolding and wandered off to clean her temple lamps. Next to the circle I burned rows of straight lines I could use to set up new charts. Couldn’t believe it myself, that I was trying to chart stars from their remembered placements last summer, without the aid of an ephemeris or even the simplest of writing materials. I sighed and settled to the task. Throughout the past month I had thought I could miss nothing more than I missed the city and my own little house. Now all I wanted was a supply of ink and paper. I’d even be happy with a cup filled with crayolas like they give kids in restaurants. I stretched my arms above my head to relieve the tension in my back. Nance watched me, frowning. “Nance,” I said, “tell me this. Why has Tarvik’s guard Artur suddenly decided to smile at me?” “You saved his life and he knows it.” “What!” “Artur knows we hid Tarvik here in the temple, saving him from Ober. He doesn’t know how we managed it and may not care. What matters to Artur is this. If Kovat returned and found his son dead, Artur would be dead, too. Painfully.”

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The more I heard of their customs, the more my head ached. I bent again over the charts, had another idea. “How old is the castle?” I asked. “I don’t know. It’s always been here.” “What about the temple?” “Ah. It was built by Kovat’s grandfather for the god of Thunder and I do know how old it is because Kovat said he was cleansing away sixty years of false gods when he dedicated it to the Daughter of the Sun. That was fifteen years ago.” “So he didn’t build the temple for the Daughter?” “No. He added on my rooms. Actually, he originally built them for the Daughter and her consort to live in. And he had those paintings done on the wall. He probably did other things, but that’s all I know.” Toss in a chart for one seventy-five year old temple, remodeled fifteen years ago, I decided. “How long has Kovat’s line ruled?” “You sound like Kovat. He asks questions like that, to see if Tarvik and I are paying attention.” “And the answer is?” “About two hundred years.” I moved a pebble backwards around Tarvik’s horoscope 200 degrees. He was the last of the line and so it might give some small hint. As Erlan and Kovat would be under the same influences, I did the same with their charts. And, oh, yes, I added Alakar, the only other direct descendant. And then, after painful hours of concentration, did that ingrate Tarvik thank me? I drew all those horoscopes, did recessions rather than progressions, studied the incomplete information from which I had to work until my head pounded, and finally saw a pattern. I told him what I saw. “You wish me to do what?” His low voice was more terrifying than Kovat’s roar. If only I could have delayed the magician long enough to learn a few of his tricks. Nothing less than a chart bursting into yellow smoke would impress Tarvik. I said, “I can only tell you what the stars say. I can’t change their messages.”

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“Then you have heard them wrongly.” Talking to illiterates did odd things to my vocabulary and left me with even odder images. No point telling him I read the charts because the word read had no meaning for him. So instead, I was left with this image of myself standing outdoors in the dark of the night chatting with stars. He had sent for me and had me escorted to Kovat’s private courtyard, one of many tucked between rooms and wings of the sprawling castle. He ordered his guards to wait outside its walls. I wondered if he did that so they would not overhear us or so they would not see him sit on Kovat’s raised chair. He hunched forward, his elbows jammed into the fur-padded arms of the chair, his chin propped on his joined hands. Was that how Kovat would have looked with twenty years of battle scars removed? “What other choices do you have?” I asked him. “You don’t have enough guards to make up any sort of army. You can’t stop Erlan’s army.” “We can defend the castle.” “And let Erlan’s men march through the city murdering all those people who live outside the castle walls? What good is that? You would have no one to rule. More than that, with all your servants dead, do you plan to learn to shepherd your flocks and scrub your floors yourself?” Tarvik’s lower lip jutted out. He blew out a sharp breath that lifted his yellow hair from his forehead. I continued, “Nance is angry because I drew charts on her table and you are angry because I told you what they say. I think I am going to confine my tasks to templekeeping until Erlan enslaves us all.” His eyebrows drew together and his expression turned from anger to doubt to sorrow. I waited. He did not want to ask and I did not want to answer. “Do your stars say my father is dead?” he asked softly. I wished I was a better liar. No matter what I or anyone else thought of Kovat, it was clear Tarvik loved him. “I have bent over Kovat’s horoscope until my head aches. All I know is this, his stars and those of his brother cross violently in the House of Death at the winter solstice. It looks like only one of them will return alive.” “He should have taken me with him.” “And what could you have done? If Erlan can poison Kovat, he can poison you, Tarvik.”

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“So instead, your stars tell you I must move my whole city.” “Yes. If we leave while Venus aspects your sun, Jupiter will help. You can settle your people in a far valley. If your father returns, you can bring everyone back safely. If it is Erlan who returns, he needs to find an empty city and empty storerooms.” “Am I to run and hide forever from my uncle? The water supply here is good and the winter grazing, too. And these are my lands. No, I will not leave. Search your stars for another answer.” There was no other answer. Although we argued again at each meeting, and I studied the horoscopes again after each argument, Tarvik knew I was right. If Kovat lived, fine. Otherwise, the survival of everyone depended on evacuating the city. I sat by candlelight and decided to again touch a chart. Sure, at first my reaction to Ober’s chart was maybe caused by my dislike of her. But then she drugged Tarvik and proved me right. The evil in her heart was as bad as bad got, more terrible than any vision I ever imagined. I never again wanted to feel the cold absence of a heartbeat and I didn’t want to know what happened to the deathwalker. I don’t go looking for horror, am not one of those people who watch gross-out films on late night TV. If Kovat’s heart was as black as Ober’s heart, I didn’t want to know. I thought of a thousand reasons to avoid seeking truth. Then, with my eyes closed to shut out distractions, I placed the palm of my hand over the sun in Kovat’s natal chart. Nothing. No warmth, no chill, no heartbeat. Enough. I wasn’t going to try again. If Kovat lived, he’d be back before Tarvik had to make a decision. As winter moved slowly across the mountains, trailing thin sheets of snow behind cold winds, the people packed up their households. They didn’t argue and they didn’t whine. They just followed Tarvik’s orders. “They move with their flocks to follow the grasslands,” Nance explained. “They are used to packing up their households.” Tarvik added, “If Erlan brings his army, he will count on finding us here to re-supply his troops. We will leave him nothing but empty storerooms.” This was what he said on his more sensible days. Other days he rushed around our courtyard complaining and waving his hands, then grabbing me to question me, his hard grip leaving bruises on my arms.

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“What good does this do?” he demanded. “My uncle will not be fooled by an empty city! He will follow us. Are we to run forever? Stargazer, I would rather stay here and fight.” He had grown older, fiercer, his brow constantly drawn forward above his eyes in a scowl that reminded me of Kovat. He was no longer the boy whose hand I’d bitten to teach him manners. All I could do was run away to my room in the temple. He sent me a gold bracelet as an apology, which I gave to Nance to add to her temple ornaments. Then I made him wait a day before again opening the courtyard gates to him. Although I had little hope, Tarvik was not ready to believe his father was dead. He constantly said, “Erlan could never trick Kovat.” Waiting was almost unbearable. Each day we watched for a scout from Kovat’s army, wishing for good news and expecting bad news. When neither came, patience disintegrated into quick tempers and stupid arguments. I tried to think of ways to calm Tarvik because I didn’t want him making snap decisions. So I made a point of inviting him to join me, to spend more time talking, less time thinking. “Come sit by the fire,” I’d say, and we wrapped ourselves in sheepskins and furs against the winter cold, and I turned the talk to nothing of importance. He needed company and he needed to have some time away from his worries. Tarvik liked to sit yoga-fashion, his legs crossed with his feet tucked under his outspread knees, warming his hands around a mug of heated mead. “Tell me about this star magic you do. Who are the stars? How do they speak to you? Are they your gods, then?” he asked. Okay, where could I start to explain Homer and all the other poets? Besides, he believed in a Sun god and a pantheon of other gods, most connected to weather phenomena. Nah. It would take years to get through that lesson and I was planning on leaving as soon as I figured out where somebody’d hidden the exit. Instead I tossed him a bit of palmistry. “I don’t know why the stars leave messages, they just do. Here, give me your hand. See that line? That’s

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your heart line and that’s your head line and they are so close together, I think your heart rules your head.” “Is that good or bad?” Was there an answer? For a warrior, probably thinking with his head was more important. “It makes you a good friend,” I said. Once I questioned him about the Daughter and her consort. He said, “They were very clever about some things. They knew how to heal injuries. But they knew nothing about the mountains and kept asking if I could show them the path to the outlands.” “Is there a path to the outlands?” “That’s what death is.” “Tarvik! I came from the outlands, you said so yourself. Do I look dead?” He touched my hand, grinned and said, “You don’t feel dead.” Another time, when his mood was as stormy as the night sky and I could not even interest him in stories, I tried another approach. Although he liked to hear me talk, he liked even better to have a listener. “Tell me what you know of the lifedrainers,” I said. His brow smoothed and he smiled at my question. “Tales,” he said. “Something to frighten Nance with when we were small.” “So there is no such thing?” “I didn’t say that.” “Are there?” He set his mug down on the ground, leaned back on his hands and stared into the embers. “Umm. I know of no one who has seen them. But the shepherds believe in them. So does Kovat, who fears nothing, and so does Erlan, who is terrified of them. My father told me once he left Erlan tied to a tree in the forest and told him the lifedrainers would eat him. They were small boys. He did it as a prank. Erlan was so terrified he bit and tore his way free and was covered with scratches and blood by the time he found his way home.” “A story to make you glad you never had an older brother,” I said. “Does Kovat often tell you stories?”

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He frowned. “He is gone often and when he is here, he is surrounded by others.” “Okay, explain these lifedrainers to me. Nance believes in them.” “Nance believes anything. About the lifedrainers I know little except that they are large and have wings. I always thought they sounded like giant bats. I might believe in giant bats, but in creatures who can change their shape or disappear? I would have to see them to believe them and I never have.” “I would rather not see them or believe them,” I said. He grinned at me. “A girl who is afraid of horses isn’t going to like giant bats.” Now what sort of story could I make up about giant bats, I wondered, and as I hurried through the following day, I let my imagination play with the idea. But I never had a chance to tell him that story. Our short but pleasant evenings by the courtyard fire ended in despair. Although Tarvik’s scouts found a sheltered valley two days walk from the city, in the direction of the high plains where Nance loved to camp on her secret outings, we agreed that everyone would stay put as long as possible. There was way too much cold and hunger involved in an evacuation. Until the choice came down to get killed or run, we’d wait. Scouts watched from higher ground for the returning army. They could reach the castle on their horses in one day, a distance that would take four days for a marching army. That would give us enough time to evacuate. “These plans are for nothing,” Tarvik complained. “My father will return and he will be furious when he finds his whole city disrupted.” I hoped he was right and a victorious Kovat, rather than a murdering Erlan, would return. “Kovat did ask me to look at the stars of his brother’s family. He suspected them. So maybe he was careful around his brother,” I said. “But would he suspect poison?” Nance asked. We learned the answer to that question a few days later when our watchers spotted the tattered remains of an army approaching. They raced back, slid off their exhausted horses, and collapsed at Tarvik’s feet. We waited until one of them could breathe enough to speak.

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“They bear no banners, but we could see them well enough,” the scout reported. “We were above them on a cliff when they made the turning down river. It was Erlan in the lead.” “And my father?” “We searched. We could not see him. It is Kovat’s horse that Erlan rides.” “And our army?” The scout looked almost afraid to answer, not afraid of Tarvik but afraid of what he had seen and what it meant. “We saw none of our own warriors. It is Erlan’s men, less one in four perhaps, but well armed.” “Do you think we can hold the castle against them?” Tarvik asked. The scout bowed. “For a few days. I would willingly die in battle to serve you, prince, as would all the guard.” Tarvik hesitated, still believing that somewhere, somehow, his father was alive. I watched, unable to offer advice. The furies that drove the barbarians’ minds didn’t make sense to me, but I was the newcomer, didn’t have any good ideas. If proof came that his father was dead, I guessed Tarvik would burn with the desire to slash his name and rule across the mountains, a fitting heir to Kovat the Slayer. However, in these past weeks he had watched his people drag their small caches of belongings from their tumbledown huts, clutched in protective arms by their owners as though they were the temple jewels. The clothes they wore, a cooking pot, and a couple of matted sheepskins made up the entire possessions of most families. They wrapped their pottery communal cups for the journey as carefully as they wrapped their children’s feet against the snow. “The castle doesn’t matter,” Tarvik decided. “We must lead the people to safety and then stay with them to protect them, in case Erlan follows.” Would Kovat have done that? To Kovat every man, woman, child was a possession to be used. He never shared his captured wealth with them. If their lives stood between him and fame, guess which Kovat would choose. For the first time, I respected Tarvik. The barrows led the procession, pulled by workmen, their wooden wheels creaking under the weight of all the stuff from the storerooms, food, oil, candles, bedding. Stripped away also was anything Erlan would want to plunder, metals, jewels and tapestries from both temple and castle.

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They wound down the hill and followed the valley route. Beyond the second row of hills, the barrows would head west, following ancient paths through the woods until they reached the safer valleys. A safe valley, I got told, was one with only a couple of narrow entrances. Those could be defended against an army by a very few guards. Behind the barrows the families massed and separated among their livestock, the stronger ones carrying lumpy packs of belongings on their shoulders, while the children flapped their ragged hems at the goats to keep them moving. Others carried sacks that jerked in their hands and barely muffled the dismayed squeaks of the chickens. Although the ground was frozen beneath the snow tracings, it smashed apart under foot and hoof, leaving a trail of mud. Nance, Tarvik and I rode on horses, our hoods pulled forward to protect our faces from blasts of winter wind. Guards and servants walked around us. At the rear of the line, mounted guards tried to sweep away with leafless branches the tracks of our direction. We had gone only a short distance when, looking back, we could see clearly what Erlan would see. The trail could not be hidden. Mud oozed up through the brushed snow. “He will follow,” Tarvik said. “If the Daughter herself appeared on the hilltops and shook her fist, Erlan would not stop. We can no more hide in the valley than we can defend the city.” He said more, muttered complaints, but I ceased to listen. What he said was true, I knew, but was he completely right? The horoscopes spun through my memory, those of Tarvik and Kovat and Erlan, and then I saw my own horoscope in my mind. I had never been much good at reading it. Still, it was worth a look. And there it was, Mercury, aspecting that degree in my chart that linked deception and strength. If the planets denied victory to those other charts, they dared my fate to outwit evil. Shivering behind the almost-closed gate, I had peered through the narrow slit as the sun set over the western hills night after night, to better place Mars and Venus, now traveling near the sun and not visible until early dark. I couldn’t see Mercury but I had it memorized for the year. Now it hit me that what I saw in the sun’s setting, besides planet locations, would be of greater value to me than any chart. An idea uncoiled

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in my mind, a mixture of sunset and the comment Tarvik made carelessly about the Daughter appearing on the hilltop and shaking her fist. When Tarvik rode away from us to direct the guard, I shouted at Nance. I should have nudged Black toward her. But I had made an agreement with the horse that if it did not try to buck me off, I would sit quietly and let it choose its own direction. When Nance heard me, she turned and rode back to me. “What is it?” “No point going with them,” I said. “Tarvik is right, Erlan will follow and murder us all.” “What else can we do?” she asked. “Nance, if we’re probably going to die, anyway, will you trust me now with a plan that might save the rest of them?” If we had been in the temple, Nance would have wailed her dismay. As it was, she bit her lip and nodded. “Find Lor,” I said, knowing he would be walking near her. While she circled away to search for him, I pulled on the reins, said the “whoa” thing, and was surprised when Black kindly stopped. We stood as an island. The marching guards washed around us. When a mounted guard called to ask if I needed help, I waved him on. With the responsibility of the people, flocks, and possessions on their minds, the last guards passed me with no more than a glance. They had traveled some way past when Tarvik whirled his horse and raced back to me. Since I had last seen him, he had picked up the old dog and lifted it on to his horse. It was in front of Tarvik, stretched like a worn rug across the base of Banner’s neck. “You will delay us, Stargazer,” he complained. “Go on without me, Tarvik. Nance and Lor and I need to return to the temple.” “You have left something behind? I will send a servant for it.” “No, not that. Tarvik, you are right. Erlan can track you easily in this wretched mud. He’s bound to follow to get the supplies. Maybe I have a trick to persuade him to stop.” Tarvik squinted out at me from the shadow of his hood. The winter sky reflected in his blue eyes. “What do you plan?”

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“It’s too complicated to explain. I’ll tell you later. Go on now and we’ll follow soon.” The muscles of his jaw hardened. He caught my wrist. “No, if anyone remains to face Erlan, it must be me and my guards.” “We’ve had this conversation. No way can you outfight his army. You’ll all end up dead.” “And what will keep him from killing you?” Unless I could come up with a convincing sales pitch, he would halt the procession. The brat refused to drop his gaze from mine or loosen his grasp. I needed something outside his understanding and within the boundaries of his superstition to keep him moving. I knew only one word to do that. “Magic,” I said. “I have magic that will defeat Erlan. I wish I could keep you here to help, but if you remain, so will your guards. Erlan has to find the city deserted or the magic won’t work.” Tarvik’s strong hand slid to cover mine, his grip crushing my fingers. For a moment I thought he would pull me off my horse. Tarvik’s lower lip jutted out. At last he said softly, “Have your way, Stargazer. I know my father believes in your magic. Besides, you aren’t going to listen to me, are you?” He wheeled off, dashing after the guards on his horse. Its hooves cut moons in the mud path. I wished I could leave as emphatically, in case he glanced back at me. But no matter how I pulled on Black’s reins, the horse would not turn. I crossed my wrists on the back of its neck and leaned my forehead against them, unable to go in any direction until Nance and Lor returned to guide the stupid beast. It did occur to me that despite my education, I lacked the simple skills required to be an effective barbarian.

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Chapter 17 Two long, ice-edged days after Nance and Lor left me, at my insistence, I still had no idea how I was going to handle my part of the plan. They had not wanted to leave me alone but we could think of no other way to outwit Erlan. The three of us worked for a day raking snow across the mud, then carefully broke tree limbs to imitate storm damage while hiding any signs of the retreat. If Erlan’s scouts searched beyond the near woods, they would pick up the trail, so it was up to me to stop them at the castle’s edge. The temple, stripped of its altar cloths, jewels, robes, dishes, and other ornaments, was as cold as the inside of a refrigerator. Heavy hanging lamps remained in the ceiling but I would need their candles when Erlan arrived. So I lived in the dark. Each evening I built a small fire in the courtyard and huddled beside it, allowing myself one fire a day so I could heat my supper. Most of the city’s firewood and candles were gone, carried off to the valley hiding place. My fire consisted of branches torn from the dark thicket near the castle. To mutilate the castle shrubbery probably carried a penalty of death by freezing in a cell, but as there was no one to accuse me, and I might soon freeze anyway, I slashed and burned. If Kovat, rather than Erlan, came stamping into the courtyard to howl at me about damaged trees, I would be pleased and grateful to see him alive. There was the possibility he and his warriors traveled a half-day behind Erlan’s army and had simply not been seen by the scouts. If so, I would probably even grovel a little and then point out to Kovat that my intentions were to protect his boy from truly unloving relatives. But as I had little faith and less hope, I concentrated on what had to be done.

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Sitting by the fire with my cup and bowl, I went over and over our plans. When my head ached with thinking, I drifted off to pleasanter memories, camping on the plateau with Nance, telling stories by the fire with Tarvik. Eating in wildly expensive restaurants with Darryl. Okay, that memory wasn’t so good, because it ended with me hiding behind a dumpster. Forget that and think about hot showers, coffee, and deli-food heated in the microwave. Was Tarvik right? Did Erlan believe in lifedrainers? Too late now to change plans. If we guessed wrong, forget my horoscope, ignore the long lifeline circling around my thumb. Signs of natural life spans were no protection from violence. Worse, suppose Erlan’s route crossed with Ober and Alakar as they traveled homeward? The scout hadn’t mentioned her, but Ober might now be doubling back with Erlan’s army. I could outwit stupid, superstitious Erlan. But I’d had a try at outwitting Ober. It was not easy and not completely successful. Would she pay any price to get even with me, take any chance? Kinda thought she would. Was Nance right? Was Ober a sorcerer? And what the hell powers did a sorcerer have? I’d met my share of mages and there were never two alike. Actually, the thought was somewhat consoling. Out in the big bad world there was only one Ober. When my fire burned to embers, I wrapped myself in my cloak and sheepskin and slept at the fire’s edge. The courtyard was no colder than the empty rooms of the temple, and far less frightening. Here I could see the clear winter sky, the familiar constellations sparkling like frost. Venus dazzled. Its aspect offered some protection in Tarvik’s chart. Would that it did the same for me. Okay, if I had the choice, this time I’d give Tarvik the luck because he really needed it. All I had on my side now was Mercury, a brief reflection in the sunset before it flickered out below the horizon, a reflection in my mind more than in my vision because I knew where it was even if I couldn’t see it. Mercury made no promises at all. And each day Erlan’s army moved closer to the deserted city and me. Sometimes I almost longed for a horse to ride. Maybe if my life depended on it, I could mount the damn thing and manage to make the right sounds and tugs on its reins to send it racing across the hills, carrying us both in the opposite direction from the destiny that marched toward me.

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However, Lor had taken Black so he and Nance could travel fast. With no reason to squeeze through the opening to the stable to keep my whereabouts secret, I walked freely around the outside of the temple and castle, leaving the gates and doors open. I wandered through the castle, idly noting the corridors and courtyards, peering into the banquet room with its long tables and benches and the scenes of Kovat’s past victories painted on the walls. A sound sent me into panic. Scraping. Foot dragging? I flattened against a door and tried to breathe. My heart banged away so loudly anyone could hear it. Listen. Hold my breath and listen. Spreading my fingers against cold stone, I slid slowly to the edge of the recessed doorway, leaned out, looked up and down the corridor. Did a shadow move? Maybe not. Then I heard it again, a low scrape, from the direction of the wide double doors that opened into the castle on an entry to make the base of a Tshape with the corridor. Big front entrance, not used much, lit the nights of banquets with banks of candles. I’d left those doors pushed open, back against the inner walls, so I could wander and get as much light from outside as possible. Dumb idea, maybe, because if it made entering easier for me, it did the same for whoever was slowly shuffling toward me. And me without so much as my Swiss pocketknife that Tarvik took and never gave back. Daggers, swords, arrows, used to be lots of them hanging on the walls. Everything had been packed up and taken away and why hadn’t I thought to ask for a club or a scary looking knife? Scrape, slide, thought I’d pass out Then the sound turned to fluttering. A tumble of dry leaves blew through the open doors and past the corner and now I could see them, dry leaves, just stupid dry leaves stirred and pushed by a draft. I was some weird kind of Superwoman, out to save the city and terrified by dry leaves. I stumbled on down the hall, away from the entry. The old dog no longer lay outside its usual door. Could have used him, not that he’d be much use, but I could have maybe yelled, “Killer dog here so get out before I let him loose!” I opened that door, the one the watchdog used to watch, and wandered into another poorly ventilated room. Like all the rooms, it was empty, but

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chiseled into one stone wall was the outline of a crown. It was touched up with bits of flaking paint, faded on the gray stone. An odd decoration, perhaps someone’s attempt to make the place more pleasant. Ah. This must be Kovat’s chamber, and was it he or some long ago warlord who marked it forever as the chamber of the ruler? I wandered back out and truly wished the old dog was still there in the doorway. He would have been no protection and had never been much company that I’d been able to see, but this night I would have welcomed a sleepy nod. I even looked into the room previously used by Alakar and Ober. Now it was bare, nothing but cold stone and a long heavy wooden table, not even a woven tapestry to steal. Tarvik had replaced the missing stone that opened the wall to Ober’s room, and had closed his own secret door before he allowed the servants to enter and remove the wall rugs. If he did not return to the castle, the passageway would remain secret forever. A scent of perfumed oils hung in the stale air. Heavy, sweet, it was something the barbarians valued. The women rubbed the oils in their hair and on their skin to mask the ever-present odors of animals and sweat. When I closed my eyes, I could see Ober and Alakar, their hair gleaming in the candlelight, long thick braids shiny with oil. I walked slowly around the room, following the scent until I reached the table. Leaning down to it, I could smell the perfume in the rough wood and I remembered Ober standing at the table drawing odd signs and mixing liquids in small bowls and vials. I had watched the neighborhood herbalist mix herbs using similar bowls and had enjoyed the clean spicy balm. The fragrance faded in a day or less. Why did this perfume hang in the air and cling to the table for so long? Perhaps because it was in an oil base, I thought, and ran my hand around the edges of the wood to feel for slick spots. This endless day I tried to dull fear with boredom. I knelt by the table, running my hands down the legs, enjoying the smoothness of the dark wood, trying to do the yoga thing of calming my mind, a practice I have yet to master. I had no other reason for what I did. My fingers caught on an edge. It took me a moment to become aware. Then I knelt and peered through the dim light, running my fingertips back and forth until I realized there was a shallow drawer set in the framing below the tabletop.

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It did not have any sort of handle. I prodded it, tried to slip a fingernail into the side, hit it with my palm, and finally sat back on the floor and stared. I could see the line of its four edges but no way at all to open it. It would be empty, of course, or maybe contain a forgotten brush or scarf. Nothing of value. Yet, what else did I have to do while waiting for my probable demise? That drawer was a challenge. My mind sharpened as I thought of every drawer in every cabinet and table I had ever seen, and then I remembered hiding under tables when I was small. I reached under the tabletop. It was open, its support beams exposed, no shelf to seal it. Flat on my back, I slid partway into the table’s shadow, reached up, found the bottom of the drawer, pressed my palm against it and pushed it outward. Then I had to wiggle myself out and onto my knees before I could stand. Secret doors, secret drawers. These folks would love wall safes. Bingo, the drawer was not empty. It held several small vials. I took them out, one by one, and opened them. The first left a sticky coating of oil on my fingers. Even holding it at arm’s length, I could smell the perfume. I had never been close to Alakar or Ober, didn’t know what scent they used, but it was pretty much overwhelming and what I’d expect of Erlan’s girls. I wiped my hands on my tunic to dry them. The next vial was dry pottery sealed with a cork. I worked the cork loose and shook the vial. Liquid sloshed in it. It didn’t seem to have any odor at all. It could have been water, but I doubted Ober would leave anything as harmless as water sealed up in such a small vial. Poison? Possibly. After setting down the vial, I picked up a small-lidded box made of hammered metal. Turning it slowly in my hands, I found the almost invisible hinges, then ran a fingertip along its opposite side until I touched the latch. Such a little box, easy to tip, and did I want its contents making contact with my skin? Perhaps it was a harmless face powder. Or perhaps it was something else. Nothing brings out curiosity like boredom, waiting and stifled fear. I put the box on the table, held it carefully by its edges, and pried up the latch.

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The box did indeed contain powder, a white powder, nothing meant to color the complexion. On the streets of Seattle white powder could be almost anything and probably not legal. As far as I knew, there was nothing like drugs among these people. Mead seemed to be their only indulgence. Oh right, that and hacking away at anyone in hacking distance with their broadswords. Bracing myself with my hands on the tabletop, I leaned over the box and breathed in very carefully. Again, there was no scent. Tarvik had been furious when he banished Ober, hissing, “Will you stay to tell my father that your daughter came to my room and mixed a drink for me? Shall I show him the locket she wears with its traces of the powder she added to my drink?” Was this more of that kind of powder? A drug of sorts? Anything from a sleeping aid to a mood changer to a ‘knock ‘em dead’ potion? Didn’t want perfume, especially that stuff, so I put the little bottle back in the drawer, then slid it closed. It was harmless but nothing I cared to have sticking to my skin. The other two items, the vial of clear liquid and the little metal box filled with powder, might be anything. Until I knew what to do with them, I might as well keep them. I closed both containers and dropped them into my pocket. After that, I wandered out into the hallway, ran my hands along the rough stones, glanced at the doorsill and wished the old dog was there to talk to. But the last time I saw the dog, Tarvik had it in front of him on his horse. Tarvik’s room was next. I went into it, knowing it would hold very little. Again, the tapestries were gone, the walls bare, the secret entrance closed, the edges of the door invisible among the many lines between stones. A long dark table remained against a wall, nothing else. Now I knew about hidden drawers, I crossed the room and headed straight to the table. Without crawling under the table I was able to reach below its top, find the drawer and slide it out. More vials and boxes. At first I was startled, wondering what they might contain. Didn’t think Tarvik mixed magic potions. The guy liked to cook, so I would believe spices, but that face was all too open and expressive to be a mask for a mage. And then, through the dusky light, I saw the neat row of

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brushes lying in the dark drawer. They had long wooden handles and thin bristles, artist’s brushes in several sizes. When I opened the first vial, I found a thick purple powder. The next contained green. There were a half dozen little metal boxes, each containing a thick paste in a different color. Paints. I turned to the opposite wall, the corner that used to hold the pile of sheepskins and blankets that were Tarvik’s bed. Those were gone. From a high window slit a pale line of light cut across the wall. I could barely make out the drawings that decorated his room, a collection of wild animals and a picture of Tarvik’s horse Banner. They were small drawings filled in with color against the lightened stones. I wandered over to study them more closely, took a moment to look at each drawing. They were pretty, neatly done with the fur of each animal carefully painted in sure strokes. I ran my fingers lightly over them, not wanting to disturb or damage them. It was comforting, in that empty room, to touch something familiar. Had a castle artist done the paintings to brighten the room when Tarvik was a little boy? As I turned toward the doorway I saw another painting, one I did not remember, on the wall between the corner and the door. I went toward it, noticed the dark lines framing a pale oval. In the shadows my eyes had to adjust to the lack of light. Or was it that my mind didn’t want to accept what I saw? The dark frame was flowing hair, long dark hair, moving as though in a breeze to circle the pale oval. That oval was my face, my eyes and nose and mouth. The exact curve of my eyebrows and length of lashes, the line of shadow beneath my cheekbones, a surprisingly accurate likeness right down to the slight frown that I must admit is my normal expression. But what was a drawing of me doing here on Tarvik’s wall, near the door, painted in colors that carefully matched my own skin and hair? It was spooky. I turned slowly to look at the opposite end of the wall where Tarvik’s bed used to be. Lying on his bed, he’d be looking at my face. And who’d want him to do that? No one at all except Tarvik himself. The painting was recent. It certainly couldn’t have been here when he let Alakar into his room and she poisoned him. Though if it had been here then, hmm, no wonder she was willing to do that.

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No, that wasn’t possible. Nance and I and the magician had been here after Alakar had drugged him. We carried him out. One of us would have noticed the picture. There was only one person with access to this room, who knew me without the paints and powders and elaborate hairstylings of the temple, and studied my face enough to draw it. So he must also be the artist of the charming animal drawings. I don’t know which bit of information surprised me more, that the guy was an artist or that he wanted my picture on his wall. I left the castle and circled back toward the temple courtyard. On my walk around the stable, I paused at the door. It was empty like every place else, no horses, no blankets, no reins. The bins were swept clean of feed, the dirt floor raked. All that was left here of the horses was a water trough, dark beneath the cracking film of ice and the lingering odor of their warm bodies. Damn, now I was so lonely I missed the horses. “A girl afraid of horses,” Tarvik had said and laughed at me. Wherever they both were, Nance and Tarvik, I hoped they were far enough away to be safe. If we all survived Erlan, I needed to leave this country quickly because I was beginning to think of Nance and Tarvik as close friends. Oh sure, might as well imagine us all back in Mudflat and me saying, “Let me introduce you to my new friends, the barbarians.” On the third night after the evacuation, I built my fire in the temple courtyard, ate my really boring supper which consisted of the last onion browned in oil and then simmered slowly until it was a pale imitation of onion soup. If Erlan didn’t finish me off, my own cooking soon would. Then, as Lor had instructed me, I went to the castle. It stood on the highest ground. The thicket trees, a pleasant clump of tangled branches in the daylight, at night reached out like many-fingered hands. Where once hundreds of cookfires had dotted the surrounding hills and clouded the air with smoke, now the empty huts made shadow patches on the starlit slopes. The silence pressed in like winter cold. I ran to the castle, hurried past the gates and turned to climb the narrow stone stairs that the guards used to mount the outer wall. At the top, I stood slowly and did not look down. I never liked to stand at the edge of a high place with nothing to grasp. A balcony with a railing is okay. A cliff is not okay. The top of the wall was worse than a cliff. There

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was no place to step back or turn away. It was just wide enough to walk on, no more. I walked slowly, my feet feeling the way. My skin chilled beyond the effects of the winter night, goading me to drop to my knees and crawl. To do so would be to tangle my hands and legs in my long cloak. That or drop the cloak and crawl in my short tunic. If I did that, I would soon be numbed by the cold stones. As I had done for the last three nights, I wound the cloak tightly around myself and shuffled slowly along the wall until I reached the far corner. Once there, I stood straight, waited for my heart to stop banging against my ribs, and stared into the darkness. And this time I saw what Lor had said I would see. Where a far ridge broke its line in a shadowed valley, I saw the sign of some long gone river that had once cut its path through the hills and flatlands, then disappeared. It left its bed, now dry and cracked beneath hundreds of changing seasons, to form a hard road. In that place where the road widened, I saw now the flicker of night fires. Erlan’s army. Lor had pointed out the spot and said it was about a day’s march away. They would break camp at sunrise and reach the city before the next sunset. Staring west I narrowed my eyes against the windy darkness and searched for another fire.

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Chapter 18 Two days earlier, a lifetime ago, Nance and Lor left me. “We willl be back before Erlan arrives,” Nance had cried, clinging to my hands. “Stargazer, come with us. You must not remain here alone.” I said, “If Erlan returns to an empty city, he will trail Tarvik.” “But how can you stop him by yourself? He will kill you, Stargazer!” Tears brimmed. In another moment she would have thrown her arms around me and refused to leave me. As much as I might prefer to let her drag me away with them, that wasn’t a choice. Not to sound conceited, but the way things were, I was the last best chance for all those poor people to survive. No more than a chance but it was better than the odds without me. Standing straight and looking down at her, my face stiff so she would not see my fear, I said, “Think about it, Nance. Tarvik didn’t harm me when he first found me. Neither did Kovat. I have secret magic, stuff I haven’t shown you. I can make Erlan believe what I tell him. I’m okay here and you’ll be back in time to help me save everyone else. Now go on, hurry.” She sniffed and rubbed at her eyes with her plump fists. “But what if we are late?” Lor pulled tight the last strap, tying their supplies to the two horses. Without waiting for Nance to think up new arguments, he grabbed her about the waist and heaved her onto Pacer, as easily as though she were a bundle of sheepskins. While she bent away from us to straighten out the animal’s reins, he said, “I will light our signal where you said.” “Lor, stay out of the city until after you see Erlan leave. If he stays or follows Tarvik, take Nance and escape.” He glared at me from beneath his shaggy brows. “She is safe with me,” he muttered.

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Of course she was. If our plan failed, he would take Nance higher into the mountains. Nance told me that was where he came from, up near the snow line, where his small tribe knew how to hide and remain beyond the reach of warring armies. “Beyond Kovat’s lands and so far toward sunset, even the elves don’t go there,” was how she put it. Okay, I accepted that without trying to understand. Now I stared west toward the exact spot where the sun would set tonight beneath the hill. All I could see was shadow overflowing shadow. As I headed back toward the temple, I began to doubt my scheme. At least Nance and Lor were out of it. I would delay Erlan as long as I could to allow Tarvik to reach a distant valley and set up some sort of defense. Beyond that, there wasn’t much else I could do for them. The trick I planned seemed more and more hopeless to me. All trick, no magic. If his approaching army had crossed routes with Ober’s train, he would know Tarvik knew their plans. He would know from Ober that I helped betray her. Fat chance I’d have of conning the man. In the temple courtyard my fire burned down to embers. I sat next to it and leaned forward with my face and hands stretched toward the flickering heat until I kind of hypnotized myself into forgetting what was coming down. Curling up in a sheepskin, I slept fitfully until daybreak. When I woke I felt ill and feverish, not capable of controlling any situation. If I were a barbarian I would have consoled myself with thoughts of an heroic death that would take me straight to the Sun God. Oh hell, what do I know? Okay, I know astronomy, and I know the sun is this big hot gas thing, but does that have to mean it isn’t a god? How comforting it would be to believe death would release my soul to go live in some magic place above the clouds, no more unpaid bills, no more Decko brothers. In the mountains the brilliant winter sky was free of city smoke and exposed every empty hut and deserted path. I walked back and forth in front of the castle watching for a fire glint or a wisp of smoke. Nothing. Nance and Lor had not returned in time. Just as well, I decided, because my plan was going to fail. This way they were out of it. Okay, it was up to me to do a con job on old Erlan, make him fall on his ugly face in awe of my magical and priestly powers. Up to me. Last chance.

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Nance herself couldn’t have twisted my hair above my head with more care. I stood in front of the altar with the small mirror Nance left for me, glancing first at the wall painting and then at my reflection. I jabbed away with the pins and combs, unsure how Nance managed to make my hair stay put in a pile on my head, until my arms ached from keeping them raised so long. Extra rubber bands would have been a godsend, a quickie route to a double pony tail or braids, easy to coil on the top of my head and pin into place. No matter what I did, tendrils always broke loose to fall across my face or down my neck. The bank manager hated my hair, along with my clothes, thought they were too casual, too messy, and I resented that, but man, he never once considered beheading me. I didn’t know back then how lucky I was. Without gold threads or jewels, all carefully wrapped and carried off with the temple treasures, I had only my hair and paints to work with, so if Erlan hated slipped tendrils, I was in big trouble. By the time I pinned the last strand into place, tears of frustration burned my eyelids. I blinked them away and bent over Nance’s pots of shaded liquids and powders. When I couldn’t think of one more trick to make me resemble the portrait of the Daughter, I hid away the paints and combs, left my wool cloak in Nance’s chamber, pulled my velvet temple robe over my tunic, and returned to the outer gate to watch for Erlan. The afternoon sun shone back at itself from the metal trimmings on the advancing army. They moved slowly, a walking pace of men burdened with heavy loads strapped to their backs. They would reach the city before sunset. Although I knew there was nothing to see, I peered once more toward the spot where Lor had said he would set his signal. Then I returned to the temple. If the planets offered me a choice, I had been unable to read it in my horoscope. My only hope lay in Erlan’s planets. At this time they offered him nothing. He would face this challenge and win or lose on his own decisions. He had neither Kovat’s strength nor Tarvik’s courage. Erlan was a superstitious man. I counted on that, didn’t know if it would be enough. In the late afternoon when the procession reached the opposite ridge, the army slowed. Now I could see Erlan at the lead on Kovat’s large horse, dressed in fur and leather, wearing a war helmet. Guards in tattered gear walked on each side of him. Even the horse looked exhausted. What did

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Erlan expect to meet? Did he think a parade, led by templekeepers and his wife and daughter would come out to greet him? I saw no sign of Ober, in her fur-lined cloak, riding near him, but she might be wrapped in something dark and riding at the end of the line. Erlan’s men trudged up a nearby hill to search those tumbled down empty huts of wood and stone. They went slowly at first, peering into huts, entering, coming back out into the daylight and turning from side to side to search the yards between the huts. After the first few searches they moved more quickly, hundreds of men spreading out across the hill, ducking through doorways, rushing back outside, gesturing widely. I could hear their shouts if not their words. What they found everywhere was nothing. Floors were swept clean and every sign of goat or chicken gone. No piles of firewood, no sheepskins. Only empty huts separated by dead vegetable patches and small twisted shrubs. Not that I had gone over to the lower hills and looked because I hadn’t. I’d never been in one of those places. They weren’t open to me when the families were in them, templekeepers didn’t wander the city, and now they would be empty and kind of spooky to walk through alone. While the men delayed their return to look through every shack, I stood in the gate’s shadow and studied them, noting the torn clothing, the marching boots worn to shreds, the small number of horses carrying supplies. Although the size of Erlan’s army had dwindled, his was still a huge following to feed. I hurried back to the temple, left open all the gates and doors, and lit the candles in the ceiling lamps. Their light barely touched the walls, so the painted faces above the altar shone dimly in the shadows, the painted eyes luminous. I stood beneath the portraits, faced the door and waited. I did not wish Erlan to hurry, but if he took too long I could die of fear before he arrived. Or the candles might burn away to nothing but sputters of smoke. Think. Think. Was there anything at all in his horoscope that I’d missed? The confusion of arguing voices approached up the hill. They came slowly and I could hear the horses’ hooves and the marching boots on the frozen path, moving in a patterned steady beat, then stopping. They shuffled in broken rhythms and spoke over one another. The march began again,

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louder, reached the leveled hilltop, stopped by the empty stables, and then headed toward me. My heartbeat doubled while the sound of boots outside the temple slowed, hesitated, took a lifetime to cross the courtyard and then stepped into the temple. Okay, time for my Oscar-winning performance. Raising my arms toward Erlan as he paused in the doorway surrounded by his guards, I willed my knees to quit shaking and cried, “Welcome back, my lord Erlan. The Daughter of the Sun has foreseen your safe return.” “You?” He bent forward, squinting in the temple’s shadows, his eyes still filled with late afternoon light. The pale, matted growth of hair on his face could not hide his surprise. He had a weak face behind the scars, with small eyes and large loose lips, but I knew the heavy body beneath the fur cape could move more quickly than the dull mind. His robes were mud-spattered. His boots were torn. I chose my words. “It is I, keeper of the temple, priest of the Daughter of the Sun.” “Where is the other one? Nance?” “She is gone.” I thought about adding a few “oh glorious ruler” phrases, but decided it might be overkill. He was not a believer in the Daughter, which was okay with me if I could make him a believer in the templekeeper. “Gone? And Tarvik? And everyone else?” “Gone. All of them gone.” He rocked back, frowned, creased his brow. “My lady Ober and my daughter, where are they?” Ah, so the stars had sent me a snitch of luck. Their paths had not crossed and she was not with him now to advise him. He didn’t know Tarvik had banished her. So here he was, expecting the city to welcome his army with feasting. Until his men had time to search all the storerooms in the castle, he presumed he could replenish his supplies. I said, “The lady Ober and your daughter and their servants returned to your own city, my lord. They thought your paths would cross.” “They were to wait here for me.” I nodded. “Their plans were changed.”

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“Did Tarvik go with them?’ “No, they left before the fever began.” “What fever?” “The fever that killed so many.” I strained to keep my face calm, my voice firm. No point explaining viruses, but I counted on a few historical references to work. “There is death in this place. It is well your family left before the fever came. It leaves its traces everywhere to spread to anyone who enters here.” Would he remove my head now or would curiosity slow him down? His voice was a rumble of scratches and roughness. I had to lean toward him to be sure of what he asked. “Where is Tarvik and why are you still here?” Should I mention plague, apocalypse? Or just tell him my headstone design preference? I babbled on because when it comes to execution, delay is always good, and it might give Lor and Nance more time to get away. “Tarvik led the living away to build funeral pyres for the dead. He hopes the fires will frighten the lifedrainers back to the mountains.” “What are you talking about? What lifedrainers?” “I know nothing but what I have seen and been told. They come from the western mountains. Is that true? They look like giant bats in the sky and it is they who brought the fever. Is it true they fear fire?” “You have seen them?” He grabbed me by the shoulders and leaned so close the smell of him made my stomach go into a tight clutch. Between gagging sounds that I could not control, I said, “Yes, several, with wide black wings.” “Then why are you still here?” “I am not of Tarvik’s people and so was left behind to tend the temple.” “Impossible!” he shrieked. “Tarvik is here, hidden somewhere! I will find him. This city is mine now!” I widened my eyes and stared at him, then continued with Nanceapproved phrases. “Do as you think wise, my lord. May your gods protect you from the fever. It is everywhere, in the city and in the hills.” And then as he leaned even closer and his stench overwhelmed me, completely unplanned and certainly at a terrible loss of dignity for me, the

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fried onions burned upward from my stomach and I doubled over and vomited. He roared an oath. After wiping my mouth with the hem of my robe, I stood up and tried to regain my balance. I felt myself sway with nausea. He grasped the hilt of his sword and swung it above his head. There was no place to run. The temple walls imprisoned me. Beyond its doors his whole ragged army waited and it’d be kind of overoptimistic to think they were too weak to finish off one templekeeper. I stared at him, expecting the sword to swing toward me but unable to think what to do. A guard ran into the temple. “My lord Erlan,” he shouted, “the far hill burns!”

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Chapter 19 Erlan clamped my elbow, his rough fingers digging through my sleeve. He marched out of the temple, dragging me behind him as though I had no more weight than an empty cape. His sword swung freely in his other hand, the blade edged blood red in the last rays of the sun. At the gate he stopped, held me at arm’s length and stared into the fiery west. The arc of the setting sun rested on the far ridge, streaking the sky scarlet. From the base of a hillside beyond the huts at the city’s edge, in deep shadow, flames shot upward, hundreds of scrub trees burning like giant bonfires. Lor and Nance. As we had planned, they had succeeded in soaking dry branches with oil, then stuffing them into the small scrub trees. Better yet, they had succeeded in hiding from Erlan’s army, and had now returned to start the fires. Next line in the script was mine. My throat was dry and hot from vomiting and lacked the deep dramatic tones I had practiced, but I managed to make my rasping really loud. I shouted, “Funeral pyres!” “Who lights them?” I shrugged within his grasp. “Those who have not yet died. They burn the bodies to prevent the lifedrainers from stealing the souls.” “What of Tarvik? Is he with them?” he shouted at me. “I do not know if he is with the living or the dead.” “He was dying?” I was perfectly willing to lie to save the others, but I was unable to look at him and keep my voice steady. The problem wasn’t honesty, it was my screaming nerves. His face was so close to mine, the furious eyes small

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glittering dots in the maze of scars, I couldn’t think. What a time to forget my lines. I fell back on chanting. “I pray the Daughter of the Sun chooses to spare him. And may the Sun guide the dying to his eternal home. May the Daughter gather their souls before the lifedrainers can steal them.” Even as I spoke the sun disappeared behind the ridge. As I knew it would, the last ray cut through a gap in the peaks, a single gold pathway on the hilltop. I caught my breath and glanced at Erlan. He stared where I pointed, his scarred face drawn into ridges of thick flesh, tense with anger and confusion. There was no reason to trust that my scheme would work, that Erlan would believe the city was destroyed by fever on my word alone, but it was my best shot. He might still follow Tarvik, determined to see for himself the extent of destruction and the number of survivors. All I could hope for now was delay to buy traveling time for Tarvik and company. They were the warriors, not me, so part of the game was up to them. I had gained no more than a detour on the way to my own death. Those fires meant Nance and Lor had returned. Were they still there, on the far side of the hill? What if the flames spread out of control and caught them? Erlan shook me. “You have seen lifedrainers?” “Oh yes. Hovering above the funeral fires,” I said. What I really wanted to do was shout, “Run! Keep going!” If Nance stumbled or faltered or Erlan guessed there were only two humans on that far hill, she and Lor would be trapped. Shaking with fear, I stared at the western hills. And then I saw her. And then Erlan saw what I saw except that I knew the script and he saw the performance. His hand dropped from my arm. I heard his indrawn breath. “There, you see! One of the lifedrainers, gathering the souls of the dead,” I cried. “Daughter of the Sun, spare their souls!” Drifting out from a cliff’s edge and down through the light shaft, huge and black with tattered edges outlined against the last sun rays, was Nance’s latest version of a hang glider, a triangular span of wings as wide as a tent.

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She slowly circled low in the sky, through the rift between the smoking hills. The effect was greater than Nance or I had hoped it would be. The play of fading sun streaks behind the thick screen of smoke made the wings appear both terrifying and ghostly, black as evil and tinged blood red. The guards around us fell to their knees and covered their heads with their arms. Sure he was stunned to silence, but I didn’t dare let Erlan think too long about what he saw, in case he noticed a small figure dangled below the bright wingspan. As the glider drifted, I began to chant, “Daughter of the Sun, take our souls. Do not let the evil ones have us, for the sake of your loyal servant Kovat and his brave brother Erlan, do not let them capture us.” Erlan’s brow shadowed his staring eyes, his mouth hung slack. His sword hung loose in his hand, its point touching the ground. I backed slowly away. His guards cowered on the ground, their hands over their faces. When I reached the temple gates, I turned and ran. I raced across the courtyard, through Nance’s rooms, through the secret door to the stable. I slid it open, stepped through, shut it behind me, ran out of the empty stable and hurried to the building’s corner. The sun had dropped and the sky darkened. Now hidden by the thick screen of smoke from the burning shrubs, Nance and Lor would toss the wings into the closest fire. Then they would head down the far side of the hills to where they had tethered their horses and get out of there. From some distant point they would stop to watch. If Erlan remained in the city, Nance and Lor would leave forever. We had agreed. Nance had promised. She had done all she could. And Lor would see to it that she kept her promise, no matter how much she might beg to return for me or to join Tarvik. “You must save yourselves,” I had told her and she had wept and stormed, but in the end she had promised. I did not completely trust her but I trusted Lor to take her away to safety.

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Now I needed to try to save myself. I stared into the shadows and saw no one between me and the castle. Creeping between the protective scrub trees, I tried not to touch their brittle, rustling twigs. With each step my robe caught at some small branch. I clutched it around me. The cracking of dry wood seemed huge, louder than his shout. “The templekeeper,” I heard Erlan scream. “The dark one! Where is she?” His voice cut the silence. I heard his men moving and calling to each other. “Search the courtyard!” “Search the temple!” “Go in! I command it!” Well that sucked. Had I underestimated their superstition? Were they really going to stick around? “There is fever here,” a voice protested. Good for you. Stick by your convictions, whoever you are. “There may be dead inside.” Whether or not they feared lifedrainers, they all knew fever, remembered plagues. There must have been some really grim outbreaks in the past to make them argue now with Erlan. While they hesitated outside the temple, I ran beneath the shadows of the trees to the castle wall and touched the latch stone. Behind me voices rose. I swung about, expecting them to rush around the wall and see me. But in the dusk they hesitated, arguing at the temple gate, not yet thinking to separate and search the grounds. If they plucked up the courage, they would run through the temple, with its many archways and cupboards and passages behind the altar, thinking I might hide in a small space. “She carries the fever,” I heard someone mutter, not far away from me. Ah. Clever of me to vomit on their feet. I slipped inside the secret passageway. My hands pressed against the stones and I slid the door back into place. In darkness, I closed out the shouts of Erlan’s army. The stale air was as cold as sleet. It seeped through my velvet temple robe. The darkness pressed against my face and filled my ears with silence. I stood in terrifying blackness, pulled my cloak tighter around me, and would have traded just about anything for a flashlight.

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Okay, so I wasn’t worried about lifedrainers or fever but there were worse fates. Had others come here to hide in times past, only to be trapped, maybe later found dead from cold or hunger or terror? If I had a light, would I see gleaming bones on the dark floor? And why hadn’t I thought about that back when I had the city to myself and could have opened a few doors and carried in a lamp? My Gran knew bits and pieces of magic. She could open her hand and shine a light from her palm. True, the light was dim and only lasted thirty seconds, but it was enough to get across the room to the light switch. Maybe not much use, still, it would be nice to light the passage for half a minute and be absolutely certain no one else was here. Then I could feel my way along the walls without any unpleasant surprises. How long could I wait here, alone, shivering from fear as much as cold? I had stashed a small sack of food and a jug of water for myself while I waited for Erlan’s army to arrive. But when that was gone, if Erlan remained, would I starve? And how could I know when he left? When I was not found in the temple, would they search the castle? Or would he cease to care about finding me? Securing food for his army would be more pressing, and there was not a scrap of food in the castle. What if their own supplies were more than we’d guessed? What if Erlan decided to stay around, move into the castle, get a start on stealing Kovat’s lands? What if I opened the secret door and found myself staring into the face of a guard? What if the doors no longer opened, if the latchstones stuck? This could be my tomb. I felt my way along the walls in a darkness heavier than I remembered. I couldn’t see my own fingers. Some light must have filtered into the secret passage from the rug-covered doorways the other times I had been here. Now all the openings were sealed with stone and I had only touch to guide me. When my foot bumped into my food pack, I sank down beside it and hugged it to my chest. Fear drove hunger away, or maybe it was the nausea thing left over from too much close up with Erlan. Why hadn’t I thought to grab a temple lamp? Still, if I had, what would it gain me? I knew what my prison looked like, a long stone corridor.

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All right, so I now lived in a narrow prison. A few torches to cast shadows around the stones might have made the prison bearable, unless light revealed grinning skulls. What is it about darkness that is so much more horrifying than cold or hunger or even pain? By now the night outside would be as black as the corridor, nothing but the stars to break the dark. Yah, I could use a few stars in here. When the sun rose and its light touched the castle walls, would that warm them? I had never been in the passage at daytime. Maybe in the summer it might be warm, but in winter, day and night were pretty much the same. How would I know when the night ended? And even if I knew, what should I do? The original plan was for me to wait until Erlan was frightened away. Then the door would open and Nance would call. Dumb me, Erlan would decide to hang around, count on it, maybe for a couple of months. I should figure a way out, maybe sneak out at night and head down the mountainside and find the place where I had entered this damn nightmare because, oh yeah, I knew all sorts of survival tricks. True, they all required a car or cell phone or an all-night deli, and none of them would be much help if I ran into a bear. Or ran out of food or water. Or had to spend a night in the forest alone. Maybe I should throw myself on Erlan’s mercy because death by beheading was sounding better and better. I slid slowly down to the floor and drew the temple robe across my face to close out my fears. Huddled in thick velvet, I hoped to hold my own warmth in around me. A brighter bulb would have stashed her wool cloak here to give herself another layer. If hunger did not drive me to open the door, the cold would. I couldn’t remain here for very long. My bones stiffened until it seemed to me that winter’s frost lined my clothing. Slowly I sat up, pulled open my backpack with numb fingers, and found the cheese. I could imagine Nance saying, “That’s you, Stargazer, living on cheese and bread because you don’t know how to cook.” While I nibbled at the cheese like a demented mouse, I tried to decide what to do next. Would Erlan have the courage to sleep in Kovat’s castle? Or would he be torn between greed and fear? He might camp outside the walls tonight, not knowing how fever spread. But if his ragtag army was down to the last

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supplies, they would be driven by hunger to search the castle for food. If I was going to escape I should probably act quickly, find the latchstone to Tarvik’s room and pray no one in Erlan’s army decided to bed down there on the bare floor. With the night to hide me, I might find an unguarded doorway and somehow sneak past Erlan’s sleeping men. My hands slid along the rough stone, feeling for the indentation of a latchstone or any other sign to tell me exactly where I was in the corridor. The stones were ice cold and sharp with chipped edges that caught at my skin. My fingers felt numb. I couldn’t even tell where one stone met another. How far was I from the outer entrance, how near Tarvik’s room? Or had I gone well past it? And how long was the passage? I thought I must be close to the end, but did it end or did it wind back and forth between the walls? I leaned against the wall and almost gave way to sobbing. If I did, I might never make it back to sanity. To lie down in snow and rest was to freeze to death, right? I suspected the same would happen now if I stopped walking. Shuffling away from the wall, my hands outstretched, I reached forward to find the corner. My fingers touched warm flesh. I screamed. The sound tore from my throat. My mind did not direct it. There was no one to hear me or help me, no one who would, nothing a scream could gain. But all the fear that tightened my muscles and blinded my mind now ripped out of me, my throat so tight and raw I could almost taste blood in my shrieks. Worse, I could not stop. My voice echoed off the narrow walls. I was caught in a strong grasp and pulled forward into a circle of arms. I tried to struggle free, twisted helplessly, kept on screaming, tried to scratch and bite, tried to move my leg and get enough room to jab with my knee. A hand slid up my back and forced my head forward, pushing my face down into a shoulder covered by thick fur. With my mouth full of animal hair and my ear warmed by his face pressing against it, my screams were muffled enough that I heard his voice. “Stargazer! Stargazer! It’s me.” Tarvik. I let my body go limp. He loosened his hold.

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A whole vocabulary of words crowded my thoughts but I could say none of them. All I could do was stand with his arms still holding me up and pick away at the animal hairs stuck to my wet tongue. “What are you doing?” he asked. He could not see me but he could feel me moving. I spit out the last hair. My throat ached from screaming. My eyes were hot with tears. Through my fury I managed to gasp, “Tarvik, I am trying to decide whether to hug you or kick you.” He snickered and said, “Let me choose.” “Why are you here?” I thought about smacking him but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. “When we reached the valley we found we could secure the pass. And so I came back to see how it was with you.” “Erlan will see your horse and know you’re here,” I muttered at him. I wanted to push him away, beat him with my fists, punch whatever I could reach, I was so angry with him. But in the darkness, I also wanted him near enough to touch. I wasn’t sure which of us was clinging to the other. I simply lacked the courage to let go of him. “I left the valley with Artur,” he said. “This sunrise I sent him back with my horse and came the rest of the way on foot. When I reached the castle gate I saw Erlan’s men searching the hilltop and so I came in here to hide.” “And then stood silent so you could shock the hell out of me?” “I did not know you were here until you touched me.” “But you didn’t holler!” “Stargazer, I had no time to fear. You screamed so soon. I knew your voice.” “You knew my voice screaming?” He hesitated. If he hadn’t done that, I might have bought his line. “You knew I was here before I touched you,” I said. “No. Yes. I was not sure. I heard you moving along the wall. I have stood often enough in this place to know it has no sounds. And as no one but you knows this way, I thought it must be you.” “You could have said something.” “How could I be sure it was you?” he asked. The little bastard knew damn well it was me.

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I said slowly, “You win. I’ll admit I’m happier now you’re here. But why did you come back? You’ve risked your life for what? You can’t help me, not if Erlan sticks around.” “I can take you out of here before you fall ill,” he said, his arms still around me. “You are shaking with chill. Erlan’s men did a quick search of the castle and now they have their cook fires set up outside. None are inside.” He turned me around and led me through the blackness that terrified me but was home to him. We left through the secret door to his room. The room was dark shadows with an odd streak of moonlight coming in through the narrow window opening at the ceiling’s edge. “That painting of me on the wall,” I said, although the room was so dark I couldn’t see it now. “When did you paint it?” “Listen,” he said, ignoring my question. “Do you hear anyone?” I stopped and listened. The shadows sang with a low steady layer of sound that had no source. “I hear my blood pounding in my ears,” I whispered, and then I heard it, a distant murmur of voices. “Some of them are in the castle.” He nodded and drew me back across the room, opened the secret door and slipped back into the passageway, then closed the door. We stood in the darkness, motionless. “They have decided not to believe my story of fever,” I said. In the dark I couldn’t see his face. What was he thinking? Was he frightened? “They must plan to stay,” I said. “We could be trapped here until we die.” “I can’t think of a nicer person to die with,” he said, “but I have to consider my people.” I did wish I could see his face. His tone was light, teasing, and I didn’t believe it. I reached toward his voice until my fingers touched his face and I traced the heavy frown line between his brows. I finished his thought. “If Erlan stays, he will track them down and eventually figure out how to get past your guards,” I said. “Yes.” He reached up and caught my outstretched fingers and I clung to his hands. I wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and wrap my cloak over my

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head and pretend I was anywhere but in that black prison. As long as I could touch him and know he was there, I could stay sort of sane. “We have to find a way to stop Erlan,” I said. “I can stop Erlan,” he said. “I can search the castle until I find him and I can kill him. And then his men will outnumber me. But after they kill me, will they stay?” “After they kill you?” “Yes. I think that might work. With Erlan dead, his army will turn homeward. Their rations must be very low. Without Erlan to push them, they won’t want to waste time searching further.” “After they kill you?” I said again. “What do you mean, after they kill you?” His hands tightened around mine. “Stargazer, we must go along the passage until we find where they are. Then I will go after my uncle. You may have to hide here for a day or two until they are gone. Then find my guards.” “No!” I screamed, and he pressed his open palm over my mouth for a brief moment. I bit my lip to hold back my voice. Tears burned and I reached into my pocket for my handkerchief. No time for crying, not with this delusional guy on a hero kick. Somehow I had to find another way out. My fingers touched the vial. “Oh. Tarvik. Wait, let me tell you,” I whispered. My words tumbled and slurred, almost beyond my control, because I thought I had an answer, I simply did not know how to use it. I explained about the vial, which maybe contained some sort of drug, and about the box of powder I was sure was the stuff Alakar had given him. Not fatal, but it had done the job of knocking out Tarvik. “Yes, that sounds right, she used a powder. But what use is it to us?” “First we have to find out where Erlan’s men are,” I said. “Then we can decide what to do. And that means no big brave combat challenge from you. This isn’t a tournament and nobody will award your dead body a prize.” He laughed and it was such a normal sound. We felt our way along the silent passage, stopping several times when we reached doorways known to Tarvik. At each, he found the hidden catch and eased the door open a hand’s width, peering through to darkness. We listened. We heard nothing.

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Leaving the passage, we crept across empty rooms and cold courtyards, looking for reflected light from lamps or fires, listening for sounds beyond the night wind. I smelled it before I saw it, vegetarian that I am, that nauseating odor of roasting meat. We stood behind a door that opened to one of the many courtyards and I whispered, “Mutton cooking.” The fire was around a corner and cast a moving shadow on the far wall. It was a low fire, probably banked coals beneath a roasting spit. We crept forward into the winter night. At the corner we both peered around the wall. A lone guard squatted by the fire. There was a shapeless hunk of meat on the spit. Pushed into the coals was a pot filled with something that did not bubble but gave off a thin curl of steam. Closer to the wall and to us were several tall jars. From somewhere past the guard and the courtyard’s outer gate, we heard the low buzz of talk. “What’s in the pan?” I whispered. “Drippings, probably. To dip bread.” “And in the jars?” “Mead, I should guess.” I yanked him back around the corner and out of sight of the guard. “I don’t know what heat will do to the powder. Will they heat the mead?” “Shouldn’t think so. That mutton is about ready. They’ll want to eat.” “All right. I’ll empty the box into the mead. Might not be enough to knock out anyone, but if it makes them at all ill, that’ll do.” “Ill? Why?” “I told Erlan there’d been a plague. Everyone left to avoid the spread.” “He believed that?” “Also told him the fires were funeral pyres. Nance and Lor torched the far hillsides.” “We saw the smoke last night. You must be magic if he believed you.” I didn’t explain about Nance’s glider, that was her secret. And I certainly wasn’t going to tell him that I had vomited on his uncle’s feet. “Give me the box,” he whispered. “No, I’m darker than you. Less apt to be seen in the shadows.” He opened his mouth to argue and I pressed my fingertips against his lips.

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“Tarvik, listen. They know I am here. If they catch me, they won’t look for you.” “No, I won’t let you.” “I’m not playing hero, honestly. They think I’m sick and have a deadly fever. None of them want to get near me. You need to go back to your camp so you can lead the fight against your uncle, in case this doesn’t work.” And while he stared at me, trying to think up an argument, I ducked away from him and slipped around the wall. The guard was half asleep, squatted on his heels by the fire. I watched him breathe in that slow rhythm, his eyes almost closed, his soldier body used to grabbing rest without quite losing consciousness. His clothes were shabby, battle-worn, and in the flickering light I could see raw scrapes on his face and hands. I moved silently a half step at a time, barely lifting my feet, one hand against the wall to steady myself. Nearby voices mixed with the low whistle of wind. With that thin background of sound, I took the little metal box out of my pocket. If it held nothing more than face powder, I’d made a bum choice. When I reached the first jar, I emptied the contents of the box into it. So that was done. It either had an effect or it didn’t. For a moment I thought about the vial of liquid. Should I add it also? I put my hand back into my pocket, dropped the box and felt around for the vial. “Ho! You!” I froze. I could not even turn my head to look at him. Flattening myself to the wall, I pressed my hands against it. My feet wouldn’t move, but what of it? There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and I had to hope Tarvik had the sense to get back to the secret passageway and close the door. I could perhaps stay alive for a while with chants and lies and who knew what. I could froth at the mouth and fall at their feet and pretend to be dying of fever until I died beneath their swords. Does that sound brave? Hope so, because it’s noble to go out like a hero, but the truth was, I had no choice. I could not possibly outrun the guard and if I did, there was an army of them in the outer yard. I felt him and smelled him as he leaned closer. I tried to roll my eyes, to look ill and contagious, and let my head fall sideways. I made some really

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disgusting sounds and if he came closer, fear and nausea would empty what was left in my stomach and the sounds would be real. He looked like every soldier, dirty, weary, frightened, his face slick with nervous sweat. He held his dagger a breath away from my throat. Questions slid across his face as he stared at me. “You,” he mumbled, his eyes unfocused. “Templekeeper.” The guard threw his weight against me, crashing me against the stone wall. My body screamed while I managed to choke back sound. I tried to break the impact, threw my arms behind me, felt burning, sharp pain, all dulled by shock. He caught my hair and pulled it up until I thought my neck would snap, then swung me away from the wall toward the fire. My vision blurred. He was afraid to kill me. Would his ruler want me alive? He opened his mouth to shout to his fellow guards and I knew my luck was over. Erlan was stupid, but not mindless. He would search my pockets and guess what I had done. The man’s voice broke in a ragged gurgle of sound that died on the edge of a cry. I struggled to focus and saw an arm snaked around his neck from in back of him, the elbow forcing up his chin. A hand adorned with gold rings clamped over his mouth. The man let go of me and I almost stumbled into the coals. Blood ran from my torn elbows, trailing down both arms. I bit back sobs, held in tears. This sort of roughhouse stuff, it looks good in TV action shows and maybe people who tramp the wilderness sort of expect some bruises, but it’s not part of normal city living, at least not for me. Whimpering was my normal reaction and I knew that wasn’t a choice. Not whimpering. Not howling. Tarvik hauled him toward the back wall and I saw the tracks the guard’s heels made in the dirt. Diving at his feet, I grabbed his ankles, lifted them. It seemed like hours but could only have been seconds. We carried him between us, Tarvik’s arms sliding around the shoulders to take most of the weight. “Where is he?” a voice shouted. “He’s supposed to be here, watching the fire.” I froze and stared into Tarvik’s widened eyes.

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We were dead. They would capture both of us and take us to Erlan. He would find the vials in my pocket, see his live and healthy nephew, and no matter how thick and stupid his brain, he would know I’d tricked him. That would be the end of us and the beginning of Erlan’s pursuit of the missing residents of the city. “Looks about done,” another voice said, and I thought he was right, we were done. Tarvik’s mouth clamped shut and I did likewise. He jerked the shoulders of our prisoner, lifting most of the man’s weight by himself and still kept his one elbow wedged so tightly beneath the chin that the man could only make low choking sounds. I stumbled after, clinging to the ankles to prevent his feet from dragging. “I’ll look around, he can’t be far,” the first voice said. His companion said, “Gives me the creeps, fixing our food here, all those people dead. Ever see fever spread?” We pulled the guard into the passageway, dropped him on the floor and closed the door. I heard Tarvik drag the man across the floor, heard the body bumping against the stones, and could not guess why the man made no sound. Was he dead? When Tarvik reached a doorway, he opened it, pulled his prisoner into a dim room. I had lost any sense of direction and couldn’t guess where we were, other than in one of the many bedrooms. The guard moaned. “He’ll come around unless I kill him,” Tarvik said and I tried to pretend I had not heard him. “Could you tie him up or something?” “And have him found?” “Maybe we could drug him. Oh. All that is left is the vial.” “Use it,” he said. “But what if it is a poison?” “You can give him the vial or I can break his neck,” he said, and he smiled his wide toothy smile at me. I must have been crazy thinking I could read his face. He could not possibly be having smiley thoughts. The best I could do was hope the liquid was a sleeping potion.

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The guard’s eyes opened and he struggled, half-conscious, against Tarvik’s grip. He was larger and heavier than Tarvik, his skin slick with sweat, his body twisting. He wrenched his head sideways, gasped, went still. Tarvik knew exactly how to hold him. I wondered if it was one of those lessons taught to barbarian sons along with sword fighting skills, how to disable and control large smelly opponents. Tarvik kept his elbow under the man’s chin and with his other hand, he held his nose. I opened the vial and poured its contents into the open mouth. Tarvik held him until he passed out, either from the grip on his neck or from the drug. He went limp and slid to the floor. Tarvik said, “He is breathing, Stargazer, so stop worrying.” He caught my hand and led me into the castle hallway, which looked like every hall I had seen and so I didn’t know where we were. We ducked in and out of rooms until we reached the one Tarvik wanted, went through it to another hidden entrance to the passageway, felt our way through the black, exited again, this time into a small inner courtyard with only one gate. The gate was bolted from the inside. “No one comes here,” he said. Like all the courtyards it was depressingly bare except for a long low bench. But there was a bit of light from the starry sky and it was warmer outdoors than inside the stone walls. My teeth were chattering and I must have looked about to pass out, because Tarvik suddenly wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a warm hug, stroked the side of my face. Could he do that all at once? It seemed to me like he had a couple of extra hands. He smoothed my hair, pressed his mouth against my ear, whispered, “He will not die. We did not kill him. He will be fine. Please, don’t cry.” I wasn’t crying. Or I didn’t think I was until he started brushing tears from my face. It wasn’t so much fear as exhaustion, I think. With his hand under my chin, he turned me and pressed his forehead against mine, our eyes so close, all I could see was a blur. “Have you slept at all these last few nights?” “Of course,” I said. “Blinked your eyes a few times, yes?”

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I was so tired I leaned into his hug, clung to him, felt his body heat radiate through me until I stopped shivering. “It must be that I am warm that you like. I’m not sticky or black or even very soft,” he said. I moved far enough back from him to be able to see his face. “No. Who said you were?” “You did. You called me Tarbaby once and then you said that is what a tarbaby is. You also said a tarbaby is cute. Am I cute?” “Good grief!” I put my head back on his shoulder. “Do you memorize every word I say?” “I try to,” he said. “Come on, I think you need to sleep.” He led me over to the bench, sat down, then pulled me down beside him. He wrapped my robe tightly around me and even arranged the hood up over my head. If I hadn’t been so exhausted I might have argued. Somewhere on the trip through the passage he had snagged a jar of mead. Now he opened his robe and tugged out the hem of the short linen tunic he wore above his wool pants and boots. I was too tired to think, but the sound of ripping cloth made me watch. He tore off a strip, then dipped it in the mead. I couldn’t even get up the strength to question him. Next he carefully rolled up a sleeve of my robe. My elbow was a bloody mess from its collision with the stone wall. He studied it, studied me, said, “Take a drink,” and held the jar to my lips. “Now.” Bossy, bossy, but I did it, drank a gulp, stared at him wondering what was next. He lifted my other arm, put it in front of my face, said, “Bite down on your sleeve. No, do not bite yourself, just the sleeve,” and he all but stuffed a wad of velvet sleeve into my mouth. “Try not to scream,” he said. I wondered why and then he washed my elbow and I knew what he meant because, oh God, did I want to scream. Maybe it was the mead that burned, maybe just the cloth rubbing over the scrape.

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That fun experience was over in a minute or two and then, damned if the guy didn’t switch arms, stuff my other sleeve in my mouth and clean up the opposite elbow. Huh. So whether or not they knew the names for bacteria, the barbarians did know about infection. I tried to keep my mind on all these puzzles. Better than decking him, which I would have enjoyed doing. When he was satisfied with his first aid project, he pulled me into a hug, kissed my forehead and cheeks, smoothed my hair, did a whole lot of soft murmuring about how brave I was and kind of reminded me of my grandmother. I didn’t bother to tell him that. “Done torturing me?” I managed to ask. “Hush up,” he said and he sounded angry but I somehow got the impression that he was angry with himself, not me. He pushed me down until I was lying on the bench with my head pillowed on his thigh, reached the length of me to tuck the hem of my robe in around my feet, then leaned his back against the wall. He kept one hand on my shoulder and it might as well have been his sword. Ah, not really, the sword had been heavy, sharp, threatening. The pressure of his hand was firm and somehow comforting. “Get some sleep now,” he said. “Are you going to sleep sitting up?” I asked. “Yes.” With no hope at all of sleeping, I closed my eyes, listened to his soft breathing, tried to relax. I woke hours later when the sky began to gray. I was alone on the bench, my head pillowed on something soft. When I sat up I heard myself moaning. Every surface of my body felt bruised. The scrapes on my arms burned. I spread open the rolled pillow and saw it was Tarvik’s fur cloak. He was wandering around in the cold winter morning with nothing more than a sleeveless tunic over his pants and boots. Above the courtyard wall the open sky turned light, and there were faint drifts of smoke, probably from cook fires. The smell of roast meat lingered. There were no sounds other than those of any morning, building wind, something creaking somewhere, turning flocks of birds. I peered through the narrow crack at the edge of the gate and saw an empty outer courtyard. The gate bolt was still in place on the inside.

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Okay, time to head back the way we came, through empty rooms and down the lightless passageway until I saw the silhouetted form of Tarvik in an open doorway. I moved quietly up behind him. Without turning his head, he reached back, curled his arm around me and held me pressed against his back. Over his shoulder I could see across an open grassy expanse that stretched from the castle to the edge of the hilltop, far enough away that the men standing there didn’t notice us. We were within sight, but we were in shadow. Erlan’s army seemed to be gathering, sorting themselves into a ragged order, tying on their packs. Some were roping blankets to the few horses, others collected weapons and piled them into carts. All of them stumbled with exhaustion, their hands shaking as they lifted and secured supplies. They looked like men who had not slept much, and as we watched I saw several rub their eyes and shake their heads. Tarvik stepped back with me glued to him, and quietly closed the passage door. My eyes had adjusted to the light and now I could see nothing in the corridor. I felt him turn, lean toward me. With his breath warm on my face, he said softly, “They are packing up and leaving.” “Are they? Why?” “I don’t know yet. Come on, let’s look.” I pushed his cloak against him and he took it and put it on. We moved methodically through the passageway, again going in and out of rooms, checking doorways, watching for moving shadows, listening for any sound at all from inside or outside. The castle seemed deserted. But each time we went into a walled courtyard, and the castle was edged with a maze of those empty little useless pockets that contained nothing more than a bench or firepit, we could hear voices from the outer grounds. They spoke in low tones. Most of what we heard were instructions on how to carry or fasten something. It took them the better part of the morning. When we reached the courtyard with the mead-filled jars, they still stood against the far wall. The spit above the firepit was empty, the ashes cold. Two warriors were in the courtyard. My breath caught and I almost turned and fled. I felt Tarvik stiffen at my side.

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They sat against a far wall, their eyes open and looking at us, their heads tilted and sagging toward their shoulders. I expected them to shout or jump up to chase us. Tarvik grabbed his dagger from his belt. I put out a hand to stop him. “You don’t need that,” I whispered and walked over to them. Neither moved. They breathed through open mouths. They stared from unseeing eyes. They looked the way Tarvik had looked after Alakar drugged him. We hurried to the jars and peered into them. They were empty, the one into which I had dropped the powder as well as the other two. After that, we stayed out of sight behind walls and doorways. Out on the open grass we saw several more men lying unconscious, ignored by the others. “How long will they be like that?” Tarvik whispered. “If it is the same potion you drank, a day or two,” I said, “maybe longer.” “Erlan must think they’re sick.” “And is leaving them behind to die.” Tarvik sighed. “They won’t die, Stargazer. You know they won’t. I didn’t.” I don’t know why I was upset. The whole purpose of drugging the mead was to convince Erlan that the castle was infected with plague. That’s what I had told him to make him want to leave and it appeared to be what was happening. For some reason, I’d assumed he would take his drugged warriors with him. “What will we do with them?” I asked. Tarvik shrugged. “As soon as the army leaves, we’ll have to find all of those left behind and tie them up.” “You can’t keep men tied up forever.” “When my blacksmith returns, we will chain their ankles.” “Like slaves?” “That’s what they will be. Quite a haul of slaves you made with that powder,” he agreed. “I don’t want to enslave anyone,” I protested. “The alternative is to kill them, but if I do, you will be angry with me.”

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As happened too often when I talked to Tarvik, he was making my head hurt. I didn’t like what he planned but I had no better suggestions. So I didn’t bother arguing. We waited in the castle, out of sight, until midday when we saw Erlan mount his horse. A guard walked beside him holding a banner on a pole. At some word from Erlan, the guard handed him the pole. Erlan held the banner high above his head with the pole gripped in both hands and waved it in an arc several times. Then he handed it back to his guard. The long shabby procession began its slow winding journey down the path and across the valley. Tarvik caught my hand. We moved quietly through the dusky halls, stopped at each corner, strained to listen. Strips of daylight cut through the empty rooms, as pale as ghosts and as spooky. I saw light and shadow shapes move in the edges of my vision, but when I turned my head there was no one there. Sure there’s ghosts, Gran always said so, but I’d never seen any. I hadn’t believed in them, not before. But here, in this castle with its generations of warriors, believing in ghosts was a lot easier. The courtyards we crossed were full of unearthly light that seemed to shift as we passed. I was numb with cold by the time we reached the front gate. Tarvik grasped my icy hand with his warm fingers. Felt good. We saw and heard no one. We climbed to the wall top. While I waited on the last stair, Tarvik, who was as sure-footed as a mountain goat, walked on the ledge. To the west, a low black cloud of smoke dimmed the fading sunlight while the hillside turned dark behind the occasional flicker of a dying fire. Here the wind brushed my hair from my face and curled my robe around me. I felt warmer now that I was free of the passageway, felt like myself again standing beneath the familiar sky. I rubbed my arms and stamped my feet and concentrated on getting my blood circulating. I could see Tarvik moving against the gray sky as he circled the castle guard walk. When he returned, he said, “They travel east and south, far beyond our hills.” East and south. Away from the mountains, away from Lor and Nance and the fires that I had told Erlan were funeral pyres. And, more importantly, away from the valley where Tarvik’s people hid. “We have won.” We grinned at each other.

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In the dying daylight we stood at the edge of the thicket’s shadow and watched Erlan’s army move slowly toward his homeland. So fear had done the trick and Erlan had been fooled by me, by Nance, and better still, by a drug mixed by his own wife. We returned to the western wall to build a fire to warm ourselves and to signal Nance and Lor to return. The sparks shot red and gold into the sky, a celebration, and I moved as close to them as I could. He said, “You’re shivering, girl. Here, put this on.” He started to pull off his fur cloak. “Keep it or you’ll be the one who gets sick.” “It’s big enough for both of us,” he said. He stood behind me and wrapped his cloak around me and held me tightly so that I could feel his heat against my back, his chin on my shoulder. I felt too warm and safe to protest. “How are your elbows?” “Better,” I said, then added, “Thank you.” While we waited for a sign from Lor and Nance, he asked, “In your land, do you live in a castle?” “No. I live in a house.” “What is a house?” It was his tell-me-a-story voice and I knew he wanted to hear about anything that would take his mind off thoughts about his father and war and traitors, and perhaps he also wanted to forget, for a while, the responsibilities he would have to face tomorrow. So I described my house. “It’s small, but the rooms all open onto a deck facing the back garden. Sometimes on warm nights I sleep outside on the deck and I can watch the stars.” “I have never seen a place like that. Tell me about it.” Tell him about my house? Tarvik didn’t know anything about houses. He knew stone castles and wood huts, but not houses. My parents, if tested, would have flunked role-modeling. They wandered off, first one, then the other, daddy moving in with his longtime girlfriend who then tossed him out, mommy following a traveling somebody to the east coast. Who knows how many address changes they both collected. What it added up to was little Claire living with first one cranky aunt and then another. Not that they meant to be cranky, my aunts, they tried

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to do the mommy thing, but my mother’s two sisters were both broke and underemployed and overextended and picked men who ran up debts before running out. Daddy’s sister was a good egg married to a bad egg. So the three aunties took turns, a month here, six months there, for me. I was twelve when my maternal gran was diagnosed with so many illnesses she had more prescription bottles in her kitchen cabinets than she had food. She was in a wheelchair within the year and needed someone to live with her, so my aunts grabbed that as a solution. Not a bad one, really, because it moved me into a house where I had a permanent room of my own and didn’t have to keep changing schools. And Gran knew bits and pieces of magic. She could do that thing of opening her hand and lighting up a room. A couple of times the trick scared off a prowler. And she could call things to her, very small things like popped buttons and dropped hairpins. That skill only seems unimportant to someone who is not in a wheelchair. We got along fine. She tried to teach me her tricks but I lacked that particular bit of magic. I did learn to take care of myself, help her, and stay out of the troll’s way. We did okay until Gran died the year I turned eighteen. I still miss her. As her daughters never came to call or help out in any way, and because she had long since decided they were a lost cause, she left them each some cash and she left me the house. That could have caused a battle except the aunts didn’t like the house and they needed the cash and the lawyer pointed out that the Will was legal, plus property in Mudflat was hard to sell, especially with a troll in the basement. So that’s how I ended up with a little two-bedroom house, all on one floor, about a thousand feet square. Upstairs is a small attic. Downstairs is a basement apartment and the rent from it takes care of utilities and taxes. The renter works nights, sleeps days, so our paths don’t cross much, but when I am out, the grass gets mowed, hinges oiled, leaky plumbing repaired. Should I tell Tarvik about the troll? Or would that require another long story to define troll? What the hell, he needed something else to think about than his uncle. “There’s a troll in the basement,” I said and he laughed because of course he thought I was joking. “Do all the people in your village have houses and gardens?”

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I nodded. “Or apartments. I don’t actually live in a village. I live in a large city.” “And do people live with their families and share meals and do you tell stories in the evenings?” I started to laugh, because it seemed like such an odd question, but then I thought about the castle with its endless cold and empty rooms, and guards standing in the hallways. He had no idea how anyone else lived, beyond knowing peasants lived in crowded huts and the rulers lived in lonely castles. And so I told him a bit about Mudflat. That’s what he wanted, something to picture in his mind. “We go to our jobs during the day,” I said, and told him about a few of my friends. Okay, I did not mention the Decko brothers, who were not friends, and not Roman, who was a sleaze. There were a couple of fun people at the bank, where I presumed I was no longer employed, and quite a few friends at the Mudflat Center House, a neighborhood center, which was solid Mudflat and peopled with assistants and counselors, all types who thought of forgiveness as a virtue and so I would be taken back like the prodigal daughter whenever I returned. If? No, not going there, not tonight. “And then at the end of the day we sometimes hang out together.” “Hang out?” “Watch TV, call out for pizza.” Skip trolls, it took the rest of the evening to explain about pizza and lights and heat and running water and I don’t think he believed a word of it. He thought I was making up a story. As he liked anything that sounded like a story, he listened carefully and asked for explanations and descriptions, then repeated words like Seattle and Mudflat and freeway. The fire flamed hot enough to shoot sparks and I felt much warmer. I unwound his arms from around me and stepped free of his cloak. We leaned back against the wall and watched the distant hills for an answering fire from Nance and Lor. He kept one arm around my shoulders, holding me against his side, keeping me comfortably warm, and I gave up trying to explain electricity and switched to sports. He asked endless questions about soccer. He was as

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puzzled as Nance had been by the idea that the point of a game was to kick a ball past the opposing team without harming anyone. “But wouldn’t it be quicker to knock them all down and run over them?” he asked. “That would be a battle, not a game,” I said. “A battle is a sort of game,” he said. “If people get injured, that isn’t much fun,” I said. “Sure it is,” he said, and then he laughed at me. “All right, someday you’ll have to teach me this game so I can find out what makes it fun.” For that one night, Tarvik and I were friends sharing a victory, trying to use happier memories to close out the horror of reality.

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Chapter 20 Winter in the Olympics. All I knew about the mountains was that in winter they were snow-topped and postcard pretty from a distance. Was this strange land above or below the winter snow line, I wondered. Maybe if I was a hiker or skier I would know how to figure that one. Wasn’t. Didn’t. I didn’t think I had climbed that far and guessed that I was still well within the mild climate of the peninsula, but who knew? The climate in this countray was somewhat different from the typical Northwest, about the same temperatures but less rain and a lot more sun. Maybe if some sort of gods wanted to hide a place and planned to visit occasionally, they would want it sunny. Or maybe it was those elves living upstairs, maybe they improved the weather. Kovat’s damn world was neither past nor future. I knew for certain I hadn’t time-traveled because the night sky was correct for the present time. But this country was not visible to the outside world and therefore it had to be controlled by magic. Okay, I grew up in Mudflat, so I accepted that when it comes to magic, non-magic rules don’t apply. Days shortened, the sun dropped lower in the sky, shadows lengthened, and the city returned to its winter pattern. Household fires moved indoors. Thin twists of smoke rose from the hole in each roof. Light snow drifted nightly across the hills, glittered in the sunrise and melted to brown mud by midday. There was more sun, yes, but the temperature range was about the same as Seattle. People were faceless shapes above scurrying rag-wrapped feet, covered in tattered shawls from headtop to ankles. Like the snow, the warriors of Kovat’s army drifted back, a few returning each day, exhausted, hungry, ill. Some wore armor beneath their torn capes, others returned dressed only in blankets and animal skins.

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From the return of the first man, we knew the truth. Until then, we pretended to believe the lie. Now the pretending ended. Kovat the Slayer was dead. The last time I touched his chart, I felt nothing, no heartbeat, nothing. As I couldn’t explain this heartbeat phenomena and hoped I was wrong, I didn’t mention it to Tarvik. Now I knew I was right. The returning warriors reported, “Kovat fell dead across the banquet goblets. We could not save him.” “You stood there and saw my father murdered?” Tarvik demanded. “We saw his death. At first we did not know the cause. But when we found all of our weapons were stolen and hidden by Erlan’s men, we knew. Erlan murdered your father. His warriors would have slain all of us if we had not fled.” “Then why did Erlan return to our city before you?” “We could not travel together,” one of them explained. “We escaped on foot. We all wanted to make it back here to warn you, my prince. Erlan had our horses. His scouts pursued us. Our one chance of reaching you was to separate. We followed circling paths to outwit his army. But they spread their scouts wide. I couldn’t make it past them.” And so it was with all of them. They returned to their home city, where their familes lived, possessing little more than loyalty. Their horses were gone and whatever else they owned had been traded to wandering herders for food. To give him credit, Tarvik was smart enough to know that loyalty was what he most needed. “We will winter here and make new weapons and rebuild our army. Come spring, we will take what horses we have and perhaps find others on our way,” Tarvik told them. “Why are you rebuilding an army?” I asked him when we were alone in the castle courtyard. “To go south,” he said. “I will lead them.” “How come?” “To capture slaves, weapons, horses, whatever the tribes of Thunder possess. You will chart my stars and tell me when I shall be victorious.” “I will not,” I argued. “Look at the way these people live. Not your warriors. Look at your workers, your servants, everybody living in the huts all around us. Without them you have no one to rule. Grow up! Your horses

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have stone stables and woven blankets and full food troughs. How about treating your people as well?” He frowned and glared at me, then said, “They have always lived thus. They do not starve. And without an army, who would protect them?” “Protect them! What if Erlan returns while you’re off playing warrior?” “That is right, Stargazer,” he said, his voice flat. “My first battle is with Erlan. My father’s death must be avenged. But I cannot attack Erlan without replenishing my weapons. I will capture an outer village first. We will seize supplies.” “Tarvik, you have lost possession of your mind!” I screamed, aware in some corner of my own mind that we were both changing, Tarvik becoming more confident and more in control of his emotions, me flying into Nancelike fits of temper. He leaned toward me, his face almost touching mine, the muscles of his jaw tightening. To be the same height as Tarvik was to be same height as a field rock. I could glare back but we both knew which of us was unmoveable. I fled to the temple. This time he didn’t send a gold trinket to appease me. For three days I saw nothing of him, heard nothing from him. Nance and I tried to ready the temple for increasing cold. We moved the cook fire inside so its smoke drifted upward through the ceiling hole. I tried to describe fireplaces and chimneys. “If your fire burns against the wall, does the wall turn black?” Nance asked. “The fire burns in this box place with it own chimney. A tube? Tunnel? I don’t know, what’s a hollow pillar that goes up and through the roof? It’s a chimney but I can’t explain. Anyhow, it takes the smoke out like the hole in your ceiling.” “But then you cannot walk around it.” As I was not a builder, I didn’t know how to explain why a hearth and chimney served better than a hole in the ceiling, even though I knew that if we had a fireplace we would not constantly breathe smoke. Modern city smog was pretty damn clean compared to breathing wood smoke all day. What I really wanted was a metal pellet stove, capable of giving off some heat, but I knew less about those things than I did about fireplaces.

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Faced with the problems of maintaining small comforts, as well as preparing the temple for the service of the Winter Solstice, I had little time to wonder what Tarvik was doing. He no longer came banging on our gate to relieve his boredom, but as he needed to assume his father’s rule quickly, I thought the castle politics must be taking up his time. It wasn’t as though I missed the brat. Not that I would admit to myself or to Nance. But there were times when I found myself standing motionless with a polishing cloth in my hand, my tasks forgotten and my mind filled with questions about Tarvik. He smiled more easily now than when we’d first met, teased me with his wide grin. Caught me in an occasional hug, then laughed at me when I pushed him away. And when he was angry, he became quiet and thoughtful, and I was less sure of where his mind wandered. Damn, the boy was turning into an adult, which made him a lot harder to figure out. And what about me? No way was I going to spend my life here. I was fond of Nance and I admired old Lor. No matter what I thought of their bloodlust, I respected the loyalty the warriors gave Tarvik. But be stuck here forever? “I shall never make a proper templekeeper of you,” Nance scolded, grabbing the cloth from my hand. “If you cannot polish the lamps, do you think you could mend your cape lining?” “Nance, you know I can’t sew. I will polish.” “What is it that sets you dreaming?” “Dreaming?” “You should see your face, Stargazer. Your thoughts are certainly not on lamp polishing.” Too much Tarvik on my mind. I needed to avoid his company. Oh right, at the moment, he was avoiding mine. And yet, my mind kept bringing up questions. He had been raised to be a warrior and I knew from watching the tournaments that he was very good at fighting and insanely fearless. But he also knew how to dance and to cook and to paint pictures. What an odd collection of skills. If I’d met him in Seattle, would we have hit it off? Sure, I was attracted, but not insane. It didn’t matter how much fun he was, he came with a weird life filled with impossible attitudes.

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The service of the Winter Solstice fulfilled Nance’s dreams, overflowing with chants and rituals, and ended in a ceremony blessing Tarvik as the new ruler. He wore a fur cape against the temple’s damp chill, and on his thick hair was his crown, the narrow gold circlet encrusted with dark red garnets. Nance chanted until I thought Tarvik himself would fall asleep. Kneeling before the altar, he settled into his cape until his chin rested on his high fur collar and his eyelids drooped. After Nance chanted her last, “praise to the Daughter of the Sun,” Tarvik hurried from the temple. “Where’s he headed?” I asked her after the temple emptied. “He and his men will be up all night celebrating.” Drinking. Right. Okay, some male rituals are the same in every land, I guess. “Does he inherit his father’s position?” I asked Nance. Their politics were vague, not to them, but definitely to me. They didn’t seem to follow any pattern familiar to me, not that I was ever much good at history. I did know Tarvik and Nance had the titles of prince and princess by Kovat’s decree, and Alakar, descended from the same line, was not a princess because Kovat hadn’t declared her one. And Kovat had been a warlord and hadn’t used the title of king, so nothing I’d read or seen in films quite matched the situation. “Tarvik now rules his father’s lands. To rule over others, he will have to defeat enough of them to cause them to accept him as their leader.” “Then why the crown?” “That’s his crown as heir. The first son of the house of Kovat always has the title of Garnet Prince. He wears the crown for high ceremonies. Kovat’s crown is much more grand.” “Is that how Kovat controlled the other warlords, by defeating them? Oh. Guess that’s why he was called Kovat the Slayer.” “Perhaps the next great ruler will be Tarvik the Terrible,” Nance said and giggled. “Tarvik designed his crown himself and Kovat had it made for him.” “I remember it. He wore it at the banquet after the games.” Another skill, designing patterns for metalwork. If Tarvik could give up his destructive hobbies and keep the creative ones, and I could find a transporter to swish us magically back to Seattle, we’d have nothing to

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argue about, I thought. I’d gladly let him keep his warrior training for one day so I could watch him march into the Decko house swinging his broadsword around. Okay, nice dream. “Tarvik loves garnets,” she said. “His dress robes are always that color.” Right, he wore a velvet tunic, dark red in the fireglow, the night he taught me the country dances. The next afternoon, with the sun a pale ghost behind the gray overcast in the southern sky, Tarvik sent for me. “Am I to come also?” Nance asked the guard who stood outside our gate. “The prince has requested only the templekeeper called Stargazer.” After they escorted me to the castle gate where Tarvik waited, he dismissed his guards and walked ahead of me outside the wall, tersely commanding me to follow. No explanation. Just, “Come along.” Where was the boy who had washed my skinned elbows with mead, then hugged and kissed and comforted me? I’d had my share of guys who chased until they got close, then backed off with lame excuses, the old, “I’ll call you,” and never did thing. Somehow I thought the tarbaby and I had gone past that point, that we were friends. We crossed the outer courtyard and circled the wall, our feet slipping on melting frost. I was surprised to see workmen drawing lines in the frozen ground on the far side of the castle. “What are they doing?” I asked. “What I promised you. Building you a castle of your own.” I stood speechless, memory deserting me. Tarvik stopped and turned to face me, his yellow hair lifting in the wind and catching in the fur collar on his cape. His eyes narrowed, with laugh lines at their edges, and the corners of his mouth turned upward. “Have you forgotten so quickly, Stargazer? I told you once if you served me well, I would build you a castle. You have saved me and my whole city. Without you, Ober would have stolen my mind. I might have ruled as Erlan’s slave or I might have died. The wisdom of your stars exceeds the magic of Ober and even the guidance of the Daughter. You will be the most important person in my land and will advise me in all things.”

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I let out my breath slowly. It formed a cloud in the cold air and disappeared. My own castle? That sounded way too permanent. I was hoping when the confusion settled, I could convince Tarvik to take me back to the stream where we met to see if I could find the way out. My outdoor skills were nil. Without his help, I would never find the exact area, hey, one patch of forest looks just like another patch of forest which is probably why hikers are forever getting lost. I knew the entry must be somewhere near the place where I had first seen him. Tarvik folded his hand around mine, lifted my hand, turned it over and put a small leather pouch in my palm. It was closed with knotted leather strings. “What’s this?” I asked. “Something I put together for you.” The strings that closed the pouch were tightly knotted so that whatever was in it would not fall out. “Have we had an argument?” I asked. “I hope not.” “Then why the gift?” I stopped working on the strings and looked at him until he finally met my gaze. “Yes, all right,” he said and took back the pouch and unknotted the strings and returned it to me. “I don’t like you angry with me.” “I’m not angry. And I don’t need gifts every time we disagree.” “Stargazer! Open it. It isn’t an apology. Just something I thought you could use.” Use? Now I was curious. I could feel small tumbling items in the pouch and cupped my hand below the opening and poured them out. They caught the daylight, sparkled, stunned me. Speechless, I pushed them around with my fingertip. They were jewels, each as clear as water and as brilliant as a star and each was a different color. Jewel mines in the Olympics? Not that I had ever heard of. Whatever they were, gemstone or crystal, each was cut and faceted to reflect light. Slowly I sorted them out, touching each one as I whispered its color and name. “Yellow Mercury, red Mars, green Saturn, lavendar Neptune, blue Jupiter, and oh my god is this a diamond for Venus? And this.” I touched a stone that was a soft copper-gold and sparkled with little gold flecks. “My

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grandmother had earrings of this. She called it sandstone. Perfect for Uranus.” “Do you like them?” I could hardly breathe. “You remembered all the colors I painted on the pebbles.” Two more pieces slid into my hand, two round flat bits the size of coins, a silver moon and a gold sun. “Does that mean you like them?” I think I managed to say thank you. I slid the jewels back into the pouch and put it in my pocket before he could change his mind. I had never had jewels to wear and never thought about wanting them, but markers made of jewels? It was as though I held the stars themselves in my hand and it frightened me a little to covet anything so much. “The castle could take a while to build. I thought you might like to have the markers now.” “But I don’t need a separate castle,” I said aloud. “I’m fine in the temple with Nance.” I didn’t add that I wasn’t planning to stay around that long. “The temple will be closed,” Tarvik said, and turned away. “Why?” I caught at his arm to turn him to face me. This time he wouldn’t meet my gaze. He said softly, “The Daughter saved my father once, but now she has forgotten him. She no longer looks after the line of Kovat. I will seal the temple and leave it as a memorial to him.” “But I don’t understand! I’m the one who advised Kovat to go to battle before the full moon.” “You said if he did, he and his army would be victorious, and so they were, Stargazer. They defeated a powerful warlord and captured his treasure hoard. That is why he gave a victory banquet for his army and his brother’s army. But you told him then, and I heard you say it, that you saw only the success of his army, not his own fate. You saw correctly, Stargazer. The Daughter deserted him.” “But what about Nance?” I insisted. She took her role as templekeeper seriously. This was going to be a huge shock for her, losing her temple, but maybe we could set up something in the main castle to keep her busy. I’d have to think about that. Oh God, now I was going to be a career counselor to barbarians. In horoscopes back

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home, where I knew job categories, I gave a lot of career advice, but here? Even if I had her birth date and could draw her horoscope, what sorts of jobs were available for a warlord’s niece? He pressed his lips together and stared past me. “I don’t need a separate castle. If you have to close the temple, Nance and I can share a room in your castle.” I could not read his thoughts on his face because he was trying to hide them from me, not a good sign. “There is a city beyond the mountain’s shadow ruled by a cousin of my father. He sent his messenger last summer to ask for Nance in marriage. Kovat promised the Daughter that Nance would remain in the temple, and he told me then that he would not break that promise. But now the promises to the Daughter don’t matter. She deserted my father. It would be a good marriage for Nance. I need this man as an ally.” “Nance is not a gold bracelet!” I protested. “You can’t give her away like some trinket!” He frowned and I saw in his smooth face the twisted scowl of Kovat. “Of course I can. I rule this city.” “But Nance is your friend! Your cousin! Practically like a sister to you!” “Nance will have her own castle. She should be pleased with that.” “But you will ask her,” I insisted. “It’s up to her.” He clenched his fists and said in his low voice that was so much more frightening than a shout, “Stargazer, you drive me to fury! I am building you a castle. I will give you slaves and power. But you are not the ruler. I am.” I, too, could clench my fists and scowl, and you bet that’s what I did. “I don’t want a castle or slaves or power or anything else from you. Listen up, little boy. I want you to promise me that Nance is free to make her own choices.” “That is not possible.” He would not meet my stare. Instead, he swung around on his heel and marched away from me, leaving me alone on the windy hillside. “Well enough,” I shouted after him. “Close me up in this prison you’re building for me, but you can’t make me tell your fortune! You’re on your own, fella!” And so it ended, as did all our fights, with both of us furious, neither of us willing to give an inch. This time it was Nance’s inch and I’d fight to keep it for her. When I returned to the temple, I asked Nance about this

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cousin of Kovat, hoping she would tell me he was some great guy she’d always had a thing for. “A horrible old man with breath like swamp water,” she said. “Why do you ask?” “Tarvik mentioned him,” I said, too cowardly to tell her the rest of it. The pouch of jewels burned in my pocket. I would throw it back in his face, I decided, unless he changed his mind about Nance.

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Chapter 21 Four days of silence was Tarvik’s limit. He sent me a gold ring with odd carvings as an apology, asking me to meet him at the castle. I didn’t want more gifts or apologies. During those days I had thought over what he wanted of me and what I must have from him. It didn’t sound as if he would ever help me find my way out. So what were my choices? If ever there was a time when I needed accurate charts to guide me, it was now. But there were too many planets missing in his horoscope. Once more, hoping to find I had erred, misread, or was dead wrong, I drew his horoscope on the table top, entered the sun and the slower of the planets. And then I pulled the jewel markers from my pocket and set them outside the circle. I had spent the last few nights in the courtyard, thinking perhaps he would come talk to me. He was unreasonable because he was scared, right? Because he didn’t know how he was going to live up to what he had to do. While I waited, I studied the skies and knew quite well where the planets were now and where their paths would take them in the next three or four years, but there were still gaps in his natal chart. All I knew for fact was that he would rule, and if he followed his father’s path, he would be remembered as a great warlord. His fate drove him straight into battle, betrayal, and blood everywhere, including his own. Was there a chance of changing the direction of his stubborn mind? Fate is choices. Unfortunately, he seemed determined to make the wrong ones. At best I could only hope to bend him slightly toward gentler ambitions than constant warfare. Perhaps I should butt out and let the barbarians follow their own destinies. Perhaps they had gods who guided them, chose their fates, and had plans different than what I saw. Maybe those gods had a reason for creating this hidden world and how would I know about that? My

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knowledge of astrology applied to my world. Maybe these people were part of a different universe, only existing within this bubble, turning to mist if they went beyond its boundaries. Maybe I was losing my mind. If Tarvik was mist, I was moonshine. I put my palm over the sun in his chart and closed my eyes. The heat of his energy blew through me like a firestorm and I bit my lip to keep from howling. It was there, his choice, with so much conflict between his natal chart and the current placements of the planets, I saw a glittering web of danger and death weaving around him. The beating of his heart pounded in my head, as though I could hear his life’s blood throbbing. He ran an impossible path of choices, death stalked him, and if he made one wrong decision, death would catch him within the next three years. He would never reach Kovat’s thirty-nine. Tarvik had no future. This touching of a chart and seeing so much more, I hated it. It did not make me wiser or stronger, and it certainly didn’t give me answers. It did not show me a better direction for him to follow. Isn’t that what my skills were supposed to do? This knowledge gave me nothing but grief. Again I pressed my palm over his sun, his heart, his lifeforce. And I felt his heartbeat and then a quick flicker, some small promise, something else. Opening my eyes, I stared closer at his chart and saw the weak aspect between his natal sun and Jupiter, not enough to save him. Searching the outer rim, I realized the diamond Venus in its current location was at a positive aspect with those other two, not strong enough to prevent disaster, but still. It might deflect his fate and leave him a chance. Not much I could do for Tarvik. But maybe I could find a way to save Nance. I wished now that Lor had taken her to his home village and never returned. Tarvik waited for me at the castle, slouched in his raised chair, his fingers plucking at his fur cuffs, his head bent. His guard, Artur, stood behind him, leaning against the wall, his streaked hair falling forward over the sides of his face. He glanced up at me, so the light caught his eyes, and gave me a small smile. I could never tell what Artur was thinking. Was Nance right? Did Artur believe I had saved his life? The dog was back, stretched out beside the chair, his sleepy eyes glancing at me, then closing. I don’t know why it pleased me to see the dog

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had survived the journey, but it did. I had never had much to do with dogs. I always had cats as pets, but never a dog. The old dog looked a bit lonely and I wondered if he missed Kovat. “I do not wish to battle with you, Stargazer,” Tarvik muttered. “If you still want me to be your advisor, you have to pay attention to my advice,” I said, knowing he never would. “I will tell you the matters on which I choose to hear your answers from the stars. Those opinions that come only from your own mind are to be left unsaid.” Kovat had once said something similar to me. I kept silent with Kovat, for good reason, but I was not about to back down with Tarvik. I said, “So I am now a slave.” He looked up at me, surprised. “No. You know you are not.” “This is how you treat a slave.” He shook his head and tried to smile, but we both knew neither of us would give in on this one. He said, “My responsibilities are not easy. I must find ways to increase my power. Yet when I carefully think through and choose a plan to build an alliance that will aid me, you oppose me.” “I am trying to understand you, Tarvik,” I said slowly. “I know your position is difficult. But you can’t trade people for what you want. You can trade goods or land or animals or treasure with this cousin for his allegiance, but not people.” Tarvik remained silent for a long moment, then said, “Nance is mine to give as I please, but I will offer you a choice in this.” Okay, simmer down, be reasonable, hear him out. “What is my choice?” “I will give you Nance to keep as your companion for as long as you wish if you — if you will agree to marry me.” I heard a sharp intake of breath and glanced up to meet the startled gaze of Artur. I think we had both forgotten he was there. By the time Tarvik turned his head to look at him, Artur had smoothed his face and lowered his eyes. “Leave us,” Tarvik said, and waited, while Artur walked silently past us and out the door. I was grateful for the delay. Pressure in my chest had stopped my breathing. I could not believe what he had said. Sure he was young and

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passionate, I understood all that, and the opposites attract thing probably made me seem glamorous. If he wanted me as a lover, sure, that request wouldn’t have surprised me. But marry me? Me, an outsider, a stranger, a woman with the status in his land maybe three notches above slave? If I hadn’t had skills that gained Kovat’s respect, I would either be dead or in a prison cell now. No surprise the suggestion shocked Artur. I could add nothing to Tarvik’s rule, no land, no alliances, no followers, no wealth. Our relationship up to now had been entertaining, a little beyond flirting but way short of a roll in the hay, and who’d be dumb enough to do that, anyway? Hay is hard and prickly. Okay, we never got to sex, even if I knew it was part of his long-range game plan, but wow, marriage? Bad for him. Impossible for me. There was no way I’d marry into a medieval society, a life of outdated weird, where I’d be considered a possession or who knew what else? I didn’t want to guess at their customs. Oh right, he thought he owned his cousin and could give her away, so what value did he put on a wife? “Why not command me to marry you?” I sputtered, when I regained my voice. “Why ask at all! I’m just another possession, right?” “No!” he exclaimed, rising to his feet and jumping down from the platform. He reached out toward me, touched my hair with his fingertips, then brushed his hands slowly down my arms until he caught my hands in his. I hated it when he did that. His touch was so light it sent shivers through me and raised a whole lot of reactions that I wasn’t about to share with him. His expression changed from angry to confused, and I could see him trying to think how to say whatever it was he wanted to say. I stepped away from him, freeing my hands. Something in his look warned me we were on the edge of our worst argument and I might not win it. He spoke slowly, watching me closely, as though he wanted to avoid angering me but could barely contain his own distress. “Every other thing in this land belongs to me, every stone, every hut, every horse, every person. But not you, Stargazer. You make your own laws. I cannot rule you and I know it. But look on matters this way. If you marry me, you will rule with me. You will have anything you ask for.”

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Did he think I would marry him for a castle and a crown? Did he think he could win me with a bribe? Oh, he was right, he had certainly angered me. I had helped him save his city and given him advice and stood by him, and he saw in me a loyal servant, someone clever enough to be of use to him. And that made it all right in his view to use me as easily as he used Nance. We were no more than bargaining chips to him. He would give away Nance to an ally and he would keep me as long as I was useful. My fury burned in my mind, blinding me to any caution. “Oh yes, marry me and then go off to battle, princeling!” “Stargazer! I have no choice. I cannot ignore my father’s murder. This is a blood-debt.” “So you will fight your uncle, and if you defeat him, you will then go on to another war with someone else. Oh lucky me, I have always wanted to be a widow!” “You think I cannot win?” he asked. “I think you can’t always win.” “I can if I have you to advise me, and rule for me when I am away.” “You would leave me alone to rule your city?” I shouted at him. “You trust me that much?” “I want you that much!” he shouted back. I stared at him, speechless. He looked equally shocked. But he did not back down. He stood a breath away from me, his face tight with anger and glared at me, daring me to question him. I had thought I was an amusement to him, company when he was bored or lonely, someone near his own age in a castle of older guards and warriors. Also, I came up with advice that worked. Sure I knew he thought me pretty, and enjoyed the idea of playing protector, me Tarzan, you Jane stuff. I thought it was a game with the usual teen male sex drive tossed in. Stupid me. I saw then what I should have seen these past months, saw what Ober had seen and what Nance had teased might be. And also, I recalled the painting on the wall in his bedroom. I had ignored what I really didn’t want to believe. Tarvik loved me.

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He didn’t love in the same way I loved, perhaps, or he would hardly have offered a bribe to win me, but he loved in his way, which was to see and want and attempt to get by whatever method appeared most promising. Our two horoscopes popped up like instant visions. I had been too busy searching for danger in his chart and had paid little heed to the rest of it. Now I remembered one important bit. My moon was on the same degree of Leo as was Tarvik’s sun. All else aside, it attracted us to each other. And what did a barbarian do after he captured what he wanted? Oh yes, he started right in planning his next campaign elsewhere. I could ask him, but that would only encourage him and it really didn’t matter. I knew I could not possibly remain in his world for the rest of my life. Our angry voices echoed in the stillness we had drawn down between us. How could I tell him that I could not stay with him? I couldn’t say “No, honey, sorry, it isn’t you, it’s me. I’m not ready to settle down” as I would have said to a guy back home, and probably added something stupid about hoping we could be friends forever. I could not say I’d rather panhandle than be a ruler. He thought he offered me the highest possible honor. But if Tarvik didn’t understand my way of thinking, I was even less up to figuring out his. A life of ruling a people whose existence centered on killing or capturing others would be hell for me, an imprisonment more terrible than anything the magician had faced in the underground cell. I said the only thing I could. I took a deep breath to calm my voice and said, “Let me think about this.” “You will have whatever you want, Stargazer. Now and forever.” “And Nance? Will you let Nance stay with me, whether I marry you or not?” “Until you wed me, Nance is my possession.” He would not relent. His stubborn mind overrode any hesitations of his heart. He would keep his promise to me because his word was his own law as well as the law of others. If I refused him, he would still want me as his advisor, but he would give Nance to a man with breath like swamp water. As for accepting him, out of the question and that didn’t have anything at all to do with love. He’d be easy to love now, and then what? If he survived his campaigns he’d soon be like his father, murdering innocents as well as enemies, turning into someone I would hate.

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In that moment, knowing I would never see him again, I loved Tarvik so much I had to fight tears, bite back all the things I wanted to tell him. As for warning him that his next battle could be his last, I had warned Kovat. Like his father, Tarvik would ignore me. He wanted to be a warrior. I traced lightly with my fingertips along his hard jaw, from gold earring to stubborn chin, and looked carefully at him to memorize him. Lord, I loved that face. Actually, the whole package was terrific and was nothing I wanted to walk away from. But I had to do exactly that. I caught his face between my hands and I kissed him, felt his warm mouth move against mine. I didn’t want to pull away. But I did. He stared at me, startled, his eyebrows raised, his eyes wide. I said, “You are probably the sweetest guy I’ve ever met,” because he was. I knew he wouldn’t accept goodbye for an answer. Tell him I was leaving and he’d toss me in a dungeon or lock me in a room with guards at the door. Huh. That’s kind of what I figured the Deckos would do, find a way to control me, keep me prisoner. But they’d have to do it in a free city where there are cell phones and 9-1-1 and I would have a much better chance of escaping. No better than the Deckos? Did I believe that? There were two big differences. Tarvik really wanted to do the right thing. Too bad his take on right was so different from mine. And second, Tarvik really loved me. And that laid a big dumb guilt trip on me. Time to go before I did something stupid. In my mind I saw Kovat turning away from the temple courtyard gate, looking from the back like Tarvik, the same graceful walk, the same yellow hair flaming in the morning sun on the day when he left on his last campaign. No way could I stay here and watch Tarvik collect battle scars and grow bitter and cruel and follow his father’s fate. I didn’t want to be waiting in this cold lonely castle when his guards returned to tell me he was dead. With Nance I wasted no time on hints, since nothing less than a full explanation would convince her to follow me. As soon as I returned to the temple, I sat her down and told her.

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“He wants to give me to that smelly old creature?” Nance screamed. “I would rather die!” “Let’s try to avoid that,” I said. “What we have to do now is send word to Tarvik, tell him we’re closing the temple for three days of private prayer. He’ll think I want time to make a decision and he won’t argue. That should get us out of here.” “I suppose Lor could take us to his home village,” she agreed. “He knows pathways even the cleverest of Tarvik’s scouts won’t find. But I cannot believe what you say. Are you sure Tarvik would do that, give me to that dreadful man and close the temple?” “Do you think he didn’t mean what he said?” Nance let out a shriek, bent double and pounded on her knees with her fists. “He did! I know! He would do that! I do not want to believe this of him, but I do! How could I ever have cared if he lived or died? We should have gone away earlier and let Erlan capture Tarvik! But, what of you, Stargazer? Do you leave only for my sake? Or is it that you know you could never in a thousand lifetimes love that wretched boy?” Way too complicated to explain so I said, “We don’t have a thousand lifetimes. We have three days. We better get moving.” We sent a temple guard with a message to Tarvik. We said we were closing the temple for three days of prayer. Then we slipped into the stable to tell our destination to Lor. When I mentioned Tarvik’s plans for Nance, the old man didn’t argue. He said only, “He is not his father, that one.” First job, sort out what to take. That was easy because traveling light was necessary. I didn’t know how far I would have to walk, so I put on my old tee shirt, then picked my warmest wool pants and hooded cloak and the sheepskin boots once made for the Daughter. They were very warm and laced snugly up the front. Gloves. Scarf to wrap around my neck. What else? Oh, right, back to the real world. I found my backpack, dumped everything out, found my blue billfold. I pulled out my credit cards and driver’s license and the few rumpled bills, stuck them inside the lining of a boot, then tossed the billfold back in the pack and kicked the pack behind the curtain. We left at dark.

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Lor told the guards he’d be gone for a few days because he was taking three of the horses to do some trading. As this was something he did when nomad horse traders were in the vicinity, the guards agreed they would tend the stables until his return. They presumed he was traveling alone. It would not occur to anyone that Nance and I were going with him. Not until three days passed and Tarvik came pounding on the gate. Lor left in late afternoon leading the horses, and waved to the guards. Nance and I waited until nightfall to slip out of the stable. We hid our cloaks beneath shabby shawls and looked like all the local women. Lor waited for us in the shadows beyond the last row of huts. Oh goody, time for a horsey ride. We were a night and a day from the city when we reached the plateau lands and built our first fire. Until then we rested only briefly, kept moving, ate our meals cold. Possibly Tarvik would decide, in an impatient moment, to bang on the temple gates despite our instructions. Against that chance we knew we had to hurry. The first time I saw the plateau it had glowed with autumn, a tableland of dark gold waves rippled by warm breezes. Nance had floated above it like a lazy sea bird on her glider. Now moon shadows shifted on the plateau’s flat face, touching silver sparks to the frozen grasses. Huddled into our hooded cloaks so that even in the firelight we couldn’t see each other’s faces, we bent toward the heat and ate slowly. Lor roasted potatoes in the coals and made tea out of melted snow. Now that we were past returning, I had to tell Nance my plans. I couldn’t leave her without saying goodbye. “Do you know where Tarvik camped on that hunting trip when he found me? There was a low wide stream and a thin stretch of forest and a clearing.” Lor nodded. “Aye. A bit north of here, it’s a favorite hunting ground.” “Can you find it?” Of course he could and without any questions, but Nance wanted to know why we were headed there instead of up toward the pass leading to Lor’s home village. “Nance, you must listen to me and not argue with me because this is how it has to be,” I said. “I want you to take me to the stream. At daybreak

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you and Lor will head for Lor’s village. I’m going to stay and search around that stream.” “Why do that?” she demanded. “Because that’s how I got here and so that has to be the way to leave.” As I had known she would, she cried, “You cannot do that! You cannot leave me! I will never forgive you. Even if you find a way out, it won’t lead where you think, you will end up in the land of the dead. Or if it goes to your world, you will still be in the mountains. What do you know of living outdoors? Nothing. You are helpless. You will die of exposure. Tell her, Lor, tell her she cannot!” Lor said, “There’s no world but here.” “Where do you think I came from? Where did the Daughter come from?” Lor shrugged. “Maybe there’s a way in. Never heard of a way out except for souls of the dead.” “Roads go both ways, Lor.” “If that were true, the warlords of Thunder would have gone out long ago and overrun your land,” Nance stormed. “I don’t have a choice. I can’t stay here.” “You would rather die than stay with us?” “I’ll miss you, Nance. But you can have a life with Lor’s people. I can’t. This isn’t my world.” “You are like Tarvik!” she cried. “You are cruel and stubborn and wicked and you do not care for me at all!” She fell asleep angry and I thought in the morning she would argue again, but she surprised me. She moved silently around the camp, tying bundles to the horses, a small lonely figure beneath her hooded cape. When she returned to the fire to join Lor and me at a breakfast of tea and rice, her face showed a night of weeping, her eyelids were puffed, her pale skin mottled. “Stargazer,” she said, her voice trembling but soft, “I have thought about it. We will take you to the stream. If the gods mean for you to leave us, then you will find the way out. If they don’t, then you will stay with us.” Not much to argue about there.

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Chapter 22 We crossed the plateau and the foothills, Lor and Nance traveling easily, both old hands at riding horses and sleeping on hard surfaces. I traveled miserably, with the chill seeping into my bruises. I had bruises everywhere. When we reached the stream, it was winter different, wider, flowing rapidly, edged with leafless trees and dead brambles. I would never have recognized it but Lor led me to a path that ran from the stream’s edge through the little forest. “The clearing is that way. Would have tied his horse there.” I turned slowly, studying everything, muddy water, muddy edge, muddy path, and tried to imagine the place hot and dry with summer. “That path runs to a large clearing?” “They always pitch their tents there, then come through here to get water.” “All right, then he was standing where you are and, oh damn, I was in that direction.” I walked slowly with the stream’s bank on my left, kept going, reached up with my right arm and pushed aside dry branches that all seemed to stick out at the exact height to scratch my face. I didn’t remember that part. The water had been still then, barely moving, full of floating leaves. Lower. Now the stream covered the path, reached almost to the berry thicket where I had scratched my arms searching for food. The hard dry path I’d followed was now soft mud beneath the water’s surface. The brown water spread up under overhangs of dead branches forcing me to turn and weave my way behind the edging thicket. Still, this had to be the right direction and if I kept walking, no. I walked straight ahead, which should have kept my back to Lor and Nance. Instead, there they were in front of me. Facing me. “What are you doing?” Nance asked.

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I stopped, stared at her, then looked at the stream. It was now on my right. Somehow I had turned around and was walking back toward them. Had I walked in a circle around a tree? Probably. My PBS nature trek skills were zip. Shaking my head, I turned again, held up my right arm to fend off the pesky branches, and followed the water’s edge. When I reached the snarl of vines that had stopped me the first time I looked carefully in both directions, kept the silver trunk of an alder in sight, cut in around it, touched it with my fingers as I passed, walked another half dozen steps, and damn. “Something curves here,” I said. I had grown up in Mudflat and knew that seeing is no reason for believing. The Daughter and her consort, that poor couple, probably seasoned hikers because they carried a first aid kit, must have thought themselves losing touch with sanity. I knew better. Nance said, “You’re at the end of the world. There’s nothing beyond.” “Maybe,” I said, because maybe I was insane. Maybe I dreamed that other world of paved city streets and electric lights and long hot showers, but God, I hoped not. I sat down on a fallen tree trunk. It was a bit damp but we hadn’t brought camp chairs and I sure as hell wasn’t going to sit on a horse. Never again. Although the stream was wider, the distance between the lines of trees on either side seemed about right. Imagine leaves on overhanging limbs, imagine a bright sky, imagine looking up into it, add the path. Must be a thousand places in the forest that looked identical, but Lor knew this country the way I knew the bus routes in Seattle. If this was the favorite campsite for summer hunting trips planned to entertain the warlord’s son, and Lor said it was, then this was the place. I got in and so there must be a way to get out. The stream seemed to meander on into the distance, but didn’t take any sharp turn. “Do you go boating on this thing?” I asked. “What’s that?” “Boats. You know. Something that floats. A raft, maybe?” “Floats on the water? Like the leaves? What for?”

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Okay, these folks really were not Viking descendents despite nature gods, blond complexions, and numerous Scandinavian communities in the Northwest. What all those good people had in common was a love of boats. I thought about this, but not too hard, because while I watched the woods through half-closed eyes my thoughts darted in any number of desperate directions. I even watched birds flitting around, noticed the movement, and didn’t give a damn what kind of birds they were. I had been in the water. Walking? Had I taken more than a few steps? And then I waded out. And there he’d been, on the bank above me. Where had I gone in the water? How wide was the path, how far from the trees? Did it matter? The small flock of birds circled. I was so bored I counted them as they swooped low above the stream. Catching bugs, I guess. Or maybe practicing swooping for the next bird Olympics. Who knew? But, wait, what just happened there? I hadn’t blinked, or not that slowly. Half of the flock was gone. They didn’t fly away and they definitely didn’t dive into the water. There had been a couple dozen of them, a small flock circling and now, while I stared, there were only a few, seven to be exact. And then they were gone, also, but I saw them go, flying across the stream and into the trees. I had not seen the others go up, down or sideways. They simply disappeared. Wasn’t that just my luck? I knew the exact spot where they disappeared, oh goodie, right above the center of the stream. And here was I with folks who had never built a raft. Hated to ask, but I knew I had to do it. “Lor, how deep do you figure that stream is in the middle?” “Come up more than waist high.” Sounded right. I’d waded into it in summer and it barely reached above my knees. Waist high was okay except this wasn’t summer and I was already freezing out in the dry air. “I’m going to wade down the middle,” I said. And then, because I didn’t want them floundering about, diving under the surface to search endlessly for me, which I knew they would do, I added,

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“I think I see the gateway. If I’m right, I’ll disappear. Don’t worry and don’t hunt for me. I’ll be fine. I’m pretty sure I know where I am now.” Two pairs of pale eyebrows rose toward hairlines. Lor was silent but Nance said, “Get wet in winter, get the fever.” Worse yet, I’d have wet feet all the way home. Wet wool pants would be bad enough, but soaked boots would be too much. I pulled off my boots and tied them together by their laces, then hung them over my shoulder. Then I walked to the edge of the stream, put in a bare foot, bit back a shriek because oh yes, it was barely melting ice, that stream. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be an alternate choice and the old “you do what you have to do” line covered my situation. I waded on in, step by grim step, sucking mud underfoot, slime and cold seeping higher and higher up my legs, my body, and help, the water reached above my waist. Holding my arms up, elbows out, with the vain hope of keeping my sleeves dry, as though that would counteract the cold, I reached the center of the water and waded north. Something splashed behind me. “Go back, Nance,” I said through chattering teeth. A branch slapped at my face. I tried to push it away but when I raised my arm, my loose-fitting cloak slid sideways and my scarf tangled with the laces of my boots. Everything would be soaked. I struggled to grab the bootlaces, sort of succeeded, stepped on something awful and tried not to think what. I walked into a spider web, brushed at it and realized my hands were not only wet, they were muddy and something burned at the corner of my eye, probably the mud from my fingers. One misery after another until I really wanted to scream. Where the hell was I? And then I heard the splashing again and I turned around. She was plugging right along, teeth gritted, little face scrunched up with determination, the water almost up to her chin. “Nance, go back.” I said it and then I looked past her to shout to Lor who wasn’t there. I turned, looked at the banks all around me. We hadn’t come more than twenty or thirty feet, but I could not see Lor or the horses. We hadn’t come around a bend. “Rain coming,” Nance said.

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“Rain?” I looked up at the gray sky, a thin low cloud cover. “I hear the thunder,” she said. Thunder? No, it was a familiar whistling roar. “That’s a plane,” I said, then got it. Good for me, bad for Nance. But still, the gateway seemed to be about where it had been last summer. If I walked much further, I would never find it again, but right now? “Nance, you’re outside now. In the outlands. The outworld. Whatever. Hear those sounds? That’s not thunder, that’s engine noise. You need to go back. Turn around and walk right up the middle of the stream. Try to stay exactly on the way we came.” She had a funny puzzled expression. Stared at me for several seconds and I could practically see her brain whirling through ideas. “This is your side? Here?” she asked. “That’s right.” “Good. I will never have to see my stupid cousin again.” “What?” “He cannot marry me off to some horrid old scum.” Oh lord, what now, what was I supposed to do with her? Okay, she wasn’t an alien, not from off-planet or anything, but she also wasn’t anyone I could explain. And when she tired of my world, then what? I would never find this exact stream again and considering how seldom strangers appeared in their land, this was probably the only gate. “You won’t be able to return unless you return right now.” “Good.” “Nance, what about Lor? We dragged him with us.” “He’ll go home to his own village,” Nance said, but for the first time she looked unsure and her lower lip quivered. “He will be happier there. And rich, too, with three horses.” Couldn’t argue with that. Besides, I was standing in cold water in the middle of winter somewhere on the Olympic peninsula. My choices were narrow. Stay here and die sneezing or move my butt toward the low roar in the distance, that wonderful sound of my favorite pollution source, traffic. I could hear it now and where there’s traffic there’s always a ride for two shivering young women who stumble out of the forest with a long wordy tale of getting lost on a hike.

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I stopped for one last look at the woods. I didn’t want to look but Tarvik was back there somewhere and so was a big piece of my heart. Once he asked me what happened to the tarbaby and I didn’t know the answer. Now I guessed I’d never know. Maybe this was only a few months later but I felt a decade older and a thousand years wiser. The Decko brothers might be waiting for me in Seattle. Or they might have moved on to other scams. It didn’t matter. They were nothing compared to the barbarian brothers. They didn’t have swords or poison potions. They didn’t have armies. They wouldn’t try to behead me, because despite the hands-off Mudflat policy, the police don’t ignore things like that. And most important, the Deckos lived in the land of hot showers, shampoo, coffee, and I’d either override their scare tactics or figure out a way to get help. Had to be easier than ducking barbarians. No way could a couple of bad boys intimidate me any more. Anything to get back to the smog belt. “Okay,” I said to my short companion, and we grabbed onto the trunk of a tree leaning out over the stream and hauled ourselves up the bank. “Follow my lead, don’t scream when we get into a big noisy box that moves, and most of all, let me do the talking. Okay?” “Okay,” she said. I stopped to wipe my feet dry with my scarf, then pulled on my dry boots. Wonderful. “Do you live in a castle or a hut?” she asked. “It doesn’t matter, I can live anywhere, truly, and I can cook for you.” “I live in a house,” I said. We picked our way through ferns and between fir trees, heading for the highway roar. “What’s a house?” “Halfway between a hut and a castle.” “That sounds nice. Do you live alone?” “A troll rents the basement,” I said and looked at her. She smiled that vague smile of the totally confused. “That’s nice,” she said.

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Epilogue For three days he wandered through the forest, the long road within sight. He wound around the silver trunks of alders, their branches sprouting new leaves, and tramped through the familiar undergrowth of ferns beneath the shadows of the fir trees. When exhaustion stopped him, he slept curled against a fallen log or in whatever hollow he could find that gave him any protection from the steady drizzle of rain. Once, when the road was empty, he climbed up to it, crouched down, took off his gloves and ran his hands across its surface. Flat, black, hard. Was this tar? Then he heard another beast approaching and hurled himself into the long pebble-filled pit that ran beside the road. Above him he heard the beast’s roar, its odd squeal, and he felt vibrations and the blast of displaced air as it rushed past him. When he lifted his head he saw its back and that it ran on wheels like the barrows and realized that whatever it was, it was not alive. But there was nothing pulling or pushing it. At night the giant barrows sped down the road with eyes as blinding as the sun, shooting out arrows of light, and then they were gone and the road was once more black beneath the dripping skies. After three days of walking through the woods and following the road, he began to understand the wheeled things came in different shapes and sizes, had different sounds and smells, and weren’t hunting him. He was exhausted, his long wool cloak and his boots soaked, and although the cold didn’t bother him, he was used to it, his food pouch was empty. He felt light-headed and knew he was losing strength. Late that day, shortly after sunset, he turned beneath the overhanging fir branches and saw one of the beast-barrows standing motionless by the roadside, humming softly. He feared almost nothing, had already faced his

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worst fears, and so he climbed through the ditch and up onto the road and walked close to the thing. A door opened in its side and a man stepped down. They saw each other at the same time. The man frowned and said, “Hey. Whatcha doing out here?” He pushed his hood back from his head because the man was bareheaded. It was a common courtesy. Anyone who remained concealed could be an enemy. The man’s expression softened. “You need a ride, son? Gotta take a leak, be right back,” and stepped down into the ditch. A minute later he climbed back out, pulled at something on the front of his pants, and said, “Hop in. Where you headed?” He watched as the man walked around to the far side of the thing, opened another door, climbed up and sat on some sort of chair, then leaned across to call out the open door, “Hurry up, kid, I’ve got to get moving.” He nodded, walked to the open door, looked carefully into the little room with its step and chairs and a wheel sticking up, and climbed carefully up, turned, as the man had done, and settled himself in the seat. “Fasten that seat belt. I can’t afford a ticket.” He stared at the man, not knowing what he was supposed to do. “Wow. You are zonked. Bad scar on your forehead, but it looks like it’s healing. Been camping? Get lost from your party?” While talking, the man reached across, grabbed a strap and pulled it so that it stretched from shoulder to hip, clicked it in place. He leaned against the strap and found it held him against the chair back, but before he could worry about that, the whole room moved and then the road and the forest went rushing by him, he could see it through the front of the room, see as clearly as if he were looking through an open doorway and should have felt a blast of wind but felt nothing. Numb, he stared straight ahead, expecting to be thrown out, but when that didn’t happen, he finally leaned forward as far as the strap would allow and reached out his gloved hand. His fingers touched something as solid as a wall and yet he could see through it. “Yah, got a few dings in that windshield,” the man said. “Where you headed, son?”

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He turned to look at the man and for the first time actually saw him, thin dark hair, heavy face, not unfriendly, dressed in something shiny, arms reaching in front of him and his hands curled around the wheel. Where was he headed? He guessed at what the question meant, nothing to do with his head, everything to do with where. “Seattle,” he said softly. “Do you know where that is?” “Sure, not going that far but I can drop you at a diner down the road. A lot of trucks stop there. I’ll hook you up with a ride to town. You don’t come from Seattle, huh? So why are you headed there?” “Looking for a girl.” The man laughed. “Yah, that figures.”

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End of Part 1 The story will continue in Part 2:

Welcome to Mudflat WWW.PHOEBEMATTHEWS.COM

ABOUT THE AUTHOR I live in the Seattle area and graduated from UDub with a major in Creative Writing and English Lit. My writing career started with articles for a variety of small magazines and kind of peaked with a chance to be a contributing editor for an astrology magazine for several years. That hobby led to my Mudflat books. What do I do for fun, besides write? Attend the opera, ballet, and, oh yes, the Mariners games. Even when they are losing, I adore the garlic fries. My favorite hangouts are the neighborhood Starbucks, the zoo, and Elliott Bay Bookstore. My pets are all the critters at the zoo. For breaks from writing, I draw comics about a woman who lives in a condo and loves the Mariners, the zoo, books, and coffee. Gosh, now where would I get an idea like that? Check out my website for a link to my SaraCity comics.

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